


Collared

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [17]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anderson helps solve a case, Gen, John used to be in a band, Music, Musicians, john is in a part time band again now, silliness, the pony was not hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 19:38:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's two months after Sherlock's return, and life is returning to a new kind of routine for everyone. After everything they've been through and everything they've learned about who they are and who they love, the lives of Sherlock Holmes, John Watson and their friends have achieved a new alchemy. Especially with their hobby band, Collared!</p><p>Collared are engaged to play at a police charity fete. Shenanigans, as they say, ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

London had decided to put its best foot forward for the annual Met charity fete at Chingford Plains. The day was all sunshine and pleasant breezes, not a cloud in the sky and only the occasional golf ball zinging into the car park from the neighbouring golf course.

Hardly accidents, those, to have the reach to rise over the shrubs, cross the road and fetch up on the Chingford Plain's westernmost grassy patch, but they landed harmlessly enough before mid-morning and petered out soon after. Golfers were notoriously tetchy about disruptions to their efforts to improve their drive, but most of them were sane enough to not deliberately try to bean a policeman or an attendee at a police function. Not even under extreme provocation.

The potential for extreme provocation resided in the small stage, set up at west end of the park, alongside the tent that had been erected as a green room for all the acts booked to appear that day. The stage already bore microphones, a sound system, a keyboard and a drum kit: a recipe for golfer-rage just waiting to happen, if the membership didn’t manage to hold their tempers for the afternoon.

All around the edge of the western end of the Plain, tents and booths providing games, demonstrations and recruitment material had attracted everyone from families to dog-walking couples to groups of teens hoping to win a goldfish at one of the games; or at the very least to throw a wet sponge at a copper without risk of retaliation. Three goes for a pound. Irresistible, particularly since part of the object of the exercise was to raise funds for police-sponsored community halls that were meant to offer distractions, skills and character-building opportunities for the likes of these very same sponge-lobbers.

Sally Donovan made her way past a number of tents, already doing brisk trade in face-painting, sponge-lobbing and whack-a-ratting, to the gree room tent. The tent where, later, the police brass brand and the police choir would be preparing for their performances, after the ice was broken first by The Band.

 _The band_. Collared, they called themselves now. Seriously, they were properly a band now? She didn't know what to make of that. She'd heard rumours that her old DI was mucking about with music with Dr Watson, and then suddenly that freak had managed to return from the dead, and next thing, there was a _band_ again.   
  
She supposed she shouldn't really call him The Freak any more, except that she was still furious with him. Even the whole time she'd thought him dead, she'd been angry. With him, with herself, with fate. She had genuinely believed him a fraud and maniac. She had genuinely believed him to be a dangerous psychopath. But less than a week after the bastard had thrown himself from a rooftop - and good riddance, she'd thought, even as she'd regretted the damage that was being done to her DI's reputation - the whole thing had come crashing down on top of her.  
  
The recording was found, authenticated and released: proving that Moriarty was real; proving that while Sherlock Holmes was a strange and often unpleasant man, he was not an evil one; proving that he'd killed himself to save his friends - her own DI among them.  
  
And that was that. Staying on at Scotland Yard was no longer possible. Not with the way Greg looked at her; not with Taddy avoiding her because of his own shame and disappointment; not with knowing that she'd ballsed it all up, right and proper. Sherlock Holmes was not a fake. He was an arrogant, supercilious prick, but she couldn't even pretend he was an uncaring one. He killed himself so that Greg wouldn't get a bullet in the head.  
  
And suddenly, a year later, here he was again, a resurrected man.  
  
But it wasn't Sherlock Holmes Sally wanted to see. Even though she owed him an apology, and she knew that she did. He wouldn't accept one. Nor would Greg, she feared. Tad might, but he’d had more than a year to get back in touch, especially after he’d finally left his wife. But he hadn’t called, written, texted, anything.  
  
To tell the truth, Sally wasn't at all sure who she wanted to see, or if any of them would accept the apologies she owed them, if she could make herself brave enough to voice them. But she wanted to know where to find them all, in case she could finally, today, find the courage. Mostly, she thought, she was just curious. A proper, if part time, band. _Ludicrous._  
  
Sally should have known that she wouldn't have trouble finding the tent, and that Sherlock Holmes would somehow find a way to make a grand entrance.  
  
What happened was that, as Sally found the tent, and lingered to one side, deciding what to do next, she heard a commotion through the crowd and saw two men striding through it. Well, to be fair, she saw people moving aside as someone short strode energetically through their midst and a yard or two behind a tall man, dressed in jodhpurs and tweed coat and looking for all the world like a professional horse trainer, waved his arms emphatically at his rapidly moving partner.  
  
"John! John, this is hardly my fault. Slow down! John, you said you could _cook_!"  
  
John marched - very emphatically and militarily _marched_ \- to the tent entrance, where he stopped and executed a perfectly military turn on his heel and snapped to a halt. Sally had a moment to take in the fact that the doctor was dressed in black and white checked pants and an egg-blotched white coat, and had a chef's hat clutched in one hand. White streaks across his hands and face, through his hair and indeed liberally all over his person, appeared to be flour.  
  
"No, Sherlock, I said - and I will write this down for you if you have trouble remembering it this time - I said 'I can keep the two of us from starving at a pinch, provided you like pasta, a fry up or toasted cheese sandwiches'. How you managed to extrapolate 'budding sous chef' from that, I haven't the faintest idea."  
  
"It got you in the kitchen."  
  
"It got me fifteen minutes of Lady Florence Wakefield screaming at me because apparently I've poisoned the entire family and both of her Pekinese and very possibly the koi in that insanely elaborate pond of theirs. I haven't been screamed at like that since Major Tanner took a dislike to my face my first week in Afghanistan."  
  
"There's nothing wrong with your face, John. It's a perfectly inoffensive face." Sherlock fetched up at John's side, looking disgruntled.  
  
"That's beside the point, Sherlock. What is not beside the point is that we were supposed to have finished at the manor last night, before the disaster that was breakfast occurred."  
  
"That was because..."  
  
"I know what caused it, Sherlock. Believe me. You needing to test theories at inopportune times and inappropriate locations is a commonplace activity in my life. What I fail to understand, what _flabbergasts_ me - and seriously, how or why anything still flabbergasts me at this point in our career, I have no idea - but what actually _astonishes_ me is how you got the pony into the priest hole in the first place."  
  
"I thought you said what surprised you most was that it hadn't - and I quote you, John - 'kicked the living crap out of your inconsiderate arse'."  
  
"Yeah, yeah, you're a horse whisperer, of course you are, bloody genius at everything except working out _how to get the bloody pony **out** of the priest hole again_."  
  
"The pony panicked."  
  
John glared at Sherlock.  
  
Sherlock glared at John.  
  
John's eyebrow arched, very, very high. "The pony panicked. The _pony_."  
  
"I," said Sherlock emphatically, "Did not panic."  
  
"I see. That noise you made was the noise of someone _not panicking_."  
  
"That noise was perfectly resonant with that of someone _crushed against an internal stone wall_ in a _tiny space_ by an _unhappy pony_. And in any case," Sherlock continued heatedly, "You should be grateful, because that sound, followed by that pony kicking open the hidden doorway and galloping through the breakfast parlour and into the rhododendron garden through the French windows at least saved you from any more of Lady Wakefield's ire."  
  
John paused to appreciate this fact. "The look on her face was pretty priceless," he conceded.  
  
"And the pony was unharmed, which I thought you would appreciate."  
  
"It rather enjoyed the taste of rhododendrons, from what I could see."  
  
"Especially the prize-winning varieties."  
  
At which point, the good doctor began giggling. The consulting detective made a last ditch effort to appear haughty and annoyed before facing defeat and snorting with laughter. John Watson batted at his chef's jacket with the hat, causing a puff of white flour to erupt, making Sherlock sneeze and causing the doctor to laugh even harder.

Sally was very nearly at the point where she was going to step up to them and ask why they'd dragged some poor pony into a secret passage in a manor house in the first place when she saw Taddy stick his head outside the tent to regard the giggling pair with concern.  
  
"Greg brought your gear," he said, looking at them and being careful not to comment, "And your landlady brought the change of clothes that you asked her for."  
  
"Thanks, Tad," John said, trying to stop laughing but he'd now managed to dust Sherlock's jodhpurs with flour and that kept setting him off again.  
  
"Um. Why did you take a pony into a priest hole?" Tad asked at last.  
  
Sherlock drew himself up and tried to look above explaining anything. It was John who said: "Our client says he's being haunted by a ghost horse he can hear inside the walls of the manor. He thinks one of his relatives is trying to scare him to death. Sherlock seemed to think an _actual pony_ might have been used for the scheme."  
  
"There were marks in the hallway, actual hoof prints in the vestibule and hairs caught on the stonework..."  
  
"And it may be that the culprit actually tried what you tried before abandoning the idea as _certifiable_..."  
  
"Which would explain either Madelaine Wakefield's limp or the cook's sudden illness..."  
  
"It was probably coconuts," said Tad.  
  
John and Sherlock both fell silent and stared at Tad Anderson.  
  
"Coconuts?" The hint of acidity was in Sherlock's tone, and some nasty comment about idiocy was sure to follow, only Anderson held his ground.  
  
"Coconuts. Like in _Holy Grail_. You know." He mimed tapping two coconut halves together and clicked a noise with his tongue to sound like hoofbeats, "King Arthur?"  
  
Sherlock's brow creased with puzzlement. John, on the other hand, was a picture of enlightenment, and he began to laugh again.  
  
"Jesus, Tad, you are absolutely right. And that would explain..." he paused and straightened up, jabbing a finger at Sherlock, "Take notes, now, Sherlock, because I think your case has just been solved by Tad Anderson and Monty Python. Two coconut shells banged together can make a sound like hoofbeats. Within walls. Without the need to confine or panic ponies."  
  
Sherlock scowled. "I don't know what Monty Python is. But..." his expression cleared. "Oh. _Oh!_ Yes, that explains the fibres, and Madelaine Wakefield's limp, _and_ the green house." He whipped out his phone and began to text crazily.  
  
Tad watched in surprise. John folded his arms and leaned towards him. "What Sherlock means to say, Tad, is thank you. If it weren't for your timely pop culture references, he'd have to go back to Wakefield Manor and pretend to like our client, which he doesn't do very well, and I would have to attempt to feed them breakfast again tomorrow, which could well lead to police charges related to food poisoning and crimes against pancakes."  
  
"Yes, yes, thank you Anderson, aren't you meant to be warming up for the show?”

“We’ve been waiting for you,” said Anderson, grinning.

The three of them ducked inside the tent and Sally followed as far as the entrance. Cautiously, she looked inside.

 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you need to do before a gig? Get changed, tune up and warm up, that's what. Sally Donovan finds it all very strange; and some of it quite compelling.

Peering into the cool shadows of the green room tent, Sally Donovan could see Sherlock Holmes and John Watson standing half concealed behind bags, boxes and a portable clothes rack. To one side, Tad Anderson was telling Greg Lestrade and Molly Hooper a version of the pony story, miming coconuts and generally enjoying himself. Sherlock Holmes kept pausing in the middle of stripping off his riding gear to say things like: “The pony was perfectly all right”, “It wasn’t really a panic. More irritation, I would say” and “The damned animal ended up feasting on Brazilian Orchids; I don’t see what the fuss is about.” He dragged on his tailored pants, elegant black shoe and a torso-hugging blue silk shirt before running his long fingers through his bleach-tipped dark hair. The reason for the tips was beyond Sally’s comprehension. A case, probably.

Meanwhile, Molly kept her eyes firmly on Greg Lestrade’s backside as the DI bent down to fish out some guitar picks from his case.

 _Wise choice there, Molly._ Sally had to make an effort to drag her own eyes away from the denim-clad wonder.

John Watson had peeled off his floury chef’s jacket and was standing shirtless while pouring a bottle of water over his hands and then head, trying to sluice off the flour.  Molly laughed and threw a towel to John so he could wipe the remnants of flour from his hair, chest and hands while Sherlock rummaged around in a bag on his behalf. Sherlock made some disparaging comment about the T-shirt he pulled out and copped a faceful of chef’s hat for his pains.

Sally caught a brief glimpse of scar tissue on the doctor’s back before his torso disappeared under a clean black t-shirt bearing the slogan ‘Here to save your life, not kiss your butt’. Then he stripped to his boxers and tugged on a pair of tight blue jeans.

Sally thought she should probably stop spying on Doctor Sex, in his form-fitting jeans and shoulder-hugging T-shirt and his damp hair all spikey and appealingly dishevelled. Any Minute Now.

“How long?” John asked, leaning down to unclip his guitar case.

“Forty minutes still,” Greg told him, “You weren’t as late as all that.”

John huffed and gave Sherlock a piercing look, at which Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Plenty of time,” Sherlock insisted.

“Fine. Yes. Plenty of time. We need to tune up.” John lifted his guitar from its case followed by the tuner and spent a few minutes testing and tuning each of the strings. Sherlock, meanwhile, took a few experimental swipes across his violin, checked his bow then plucked a few random notes from the strings while he listened intently and adjusted pegs and screws.

Sally watched and listened, fascinated, as the plucked notes became a simple melody; as John tilted his head to one side to watch the detective’s hands, and then began to pluck the same melody out on the guitar; as Sherlock lifted his bow and began a slow, graceful arc across the strings of his violin.

“Good, aren’t they?”

Sally gasped and pulled away as Tad Anderson appeared at the tent flap. He pressed his fingers to his lips for silence and she pressed her mouth closed on the excuse she was about to make. Instead, she stood, still and quiet, next to her former lover and absorbed the gentleness and serenity of this strange duet.

“They do this sometimes, before rehearsals,” breathed Tad softly, “Especially if they’re coming in off a case, or we are. Calms everyone down.”

Sally could imagine it. She felt calmer listening to the ebb and flow of it now, a simple folk melody that wove a sense of patient waiting, a pensive calm.

“It’s lovely,” she admitted.

“I can’t talk to you until the break,” he said.

“Why do you think I’ve come to talk to _you_?”

Tad pulled a face at her, and she grimaced. Of course. Of course he’d know she hadn’t come to apologise to the others, and there was nothing else she had to say to any of them. Precious little else to say to Tad, come to that.

“I’ll meet you out here, after the first set,” Tad told her, as the gentle music came to an end within the tent, “I need to go in and warm up now.”

 _What’s to warm up? Do musicians do stretches and press-ups before a show?_ Sally wondered, but she waited as Tad ducked back inside. She dared take another peek.

The five amateur musicians stood in a loose circle, some of them looking a little sheepish. Sally had half expected them to start stretching, but was surprised when that’s exactly what they did – rolling their shoulders and necks, pushing their hands towards the canvas ceiling then down to the grassy floor. Then John began bouncing on his toes a little, and the others followed suit, with the clear exception of Sherlock.

Then John took a deep breath and… hummed. A low note to begin with, then he let it rise, and as it did, he drew himself up taller and opened his mouth so that the hum became a resonant _aaaaaahhhhh_.

Molly, dancing from foot to foot, shaking her hands loose at her side, shaking her head to let her hair fall free, came in with a harmonising note. Then Greg joined her, deeper.

John ceased humming for a moment, shook himself, bounced on his toes some more. Taddy had pulled out his drum sticks and was spinning them in his fingers, deft and at ease, limbering up his hands. Sherlock watched them all, and Sally expected eye-rolling from him, but he just stretched his fingers out into a wide splay then curled them in to his palms again. Then again. Five or six times. Then he began, belatedly, to raise himself up on his toes and down again. Not a bounce, really, not at first, but he bent low at the knee on the downward bob, then up onto his toes again, and his arms moved slowly and deliberately away from his body, swept in front of him, drew back to his waist, like some out-of-synch tai chi.

John started his low hum again, and this time all five of them joined him with harmonising notes, starting with a hum, opening their mouths to a wide _aaaahhh._

It was Tad who started them singing.

_I need an easy friend, I do, with an ear to lend.  
I do think you fit this shoe, I do, won't you have a clue._

They all joined in, an a-capella harmony, for a verse or so until Greg took over the melody with what sounded like a gentle ballad, until she paid attention to the words.

_I am an anti-Christ_  
I am an anarchist,  
Don't know what I want  
But I know how to get it.  
I wanna destroy the passer by  
'Cos I wanna be anarchy 

He was grinning the whole time he led their voices, like he was enjoying the joke immensely, and Sally could see John’s answering grin. In fact, he seemed to be looking at Sherlock teasingly as he sang his part. Sally couldn’t see Sherlock’s face, but she watched him flip John the bird even as she heard his baritone underlining the melody.

And then Molly took the whole exercise further into Bizarroland by taking the five part a-capella choir into _Adelweiss._ From The Sound of Music.

 _These people have no business being a band together_ , thought Sally, half horrified, half impressed, all incredulous, _not even a part time, mucking about for charity band. They just shouldn’t be allowed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YouTube links to the songs Collared plays as part of their warm-up.
> 
>  
> 
> [La Serenissima by Loreena McKennit ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m54SmVsQqgc)  
> [About a Girl by Nirvana ](http://youtu.be/AhcttcXcRYY)  
> [Anarchy in the UK by Frazier Chorus ](http://youtu.be/bbMxr5vvNAg)  
> [Edelweiss cover by LuieLand](http://youtu.be/JSHLZP2vKyE)
> 
>  
> 
> I like to imagine the last piece is, in this AU, something Molly might have worked out and posted just for fun.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Collared take the stage for their first set at the Met charity fete. Sally finds the band strange and a bit annoying. Sherlock sings ironic lyrics about not actually being dead. The band is aggressively heckled. Molly reveals a secret talent.

The space in front of the stage was filling up at the announcement that the band Collared - featuring the players from festival hit Gladstone’s Collar (including members of the Met!) - was up next. Looking around, Sally saw a few of the same faces she’d seen at that insane undercover gig almost two years ago. John Watson and his Gladstone’s Collar history were still something of a draw, unless it was just that people were hoping today’s concert would also include an onstage brawl. Music fans, thought Sally, could be very strange.

A ragged cheer rose from the crowd, though, as the band made their way onto the platform. As he had at the festival gig, John Watson raised a hand in general greeting and the crowd, a hundred or so people, cheered back at him.

“Welcome to Chingford Plain and the annual London Met Charity Fete,” he said, sounding like a council functionary opening a town meeting. John seemed to realise it and shook his head with a self-deprecating frown. “We’re Collared,” he continued gamely, “And this is our new song.”

They were all standing, instruments ready. John nodded at Tad and with only that to count them in, there were suddenly drums and manic guitar strings, and the next beat filled up with four bass notes, and then the energetic crashing again, keyboards and violin coming in, hardly tempering the rush of it, and John leaning into his microphone.

 _Give me the wheel,  
so we can move a little faster  
I’ll make it real.   
I’m not a glorious disaster_.

And then Sherlock, his violin balanced low so that he could sing, stepped up to his own mic.

_What part of living says you gotta die?  
I plan on burning through another nine lives_

And the two of them were eyeing each other with that glint of mad glee they seemed to have half of the time, because the irony was certainly not lost on them. Then Sherlock pulled back and let John roar into the chorus.

_One shot across the clear blue sky  
Tick tock I think the well is running dry  
My, my, I can’t lie  
I need a shot again, that sweet adrenaline_

And, god, thought Sally Donovan, that is _exactly_ your problem isn’t it, Dr Watson. Why did I never notice that before? _Crazy goddamned adrenaline junkie._

She had to admit, it looked like he not only knew this about himself, but that he was perfectly at home with it. He was shouting it out, damn near proud of himself, and there was Sherlock, backing up the crazy in baritone, and even bloody DI Lestrade and Tad in on the vocal action, not to mention Molly, hands flying over the keys, her head thrown back as she sang the chorus. Then the music was growling down into a bridge where John and Sherlock matched, voice for voice, the personified lunacy.

_My, my I just can’t lie,  
it’s the speed in the sound that I’m dying to try  
My, my I just can’t lie,   
it’s the love of the chase that created the ride._

And the mad flurry of notes came after, sucking the whole band into the maelstrom of it, their voices shouting echoes to the main lyric.

  _My my  
(MY MY!)   
I can’t lie   
(CAN’T LIE!)_

 _I have never understood any of these people as individuals_ , Sally realised with something like despair, _not even Tad, let alone who they are when they’re together like this_.

The song roared to its close and the crowd – which had grown larger in the last three minutes – cheered its approval. John grinned at his band, and at the people gathering on the grass in front of the stage. His expression grew a little… sharp, she thought described it best. Sally followed his gaze and realised that he was seeing some cops in the ranks. People he knew, maybe, from the Yard but other London stations too. When she looked at the faces of the police in question, she noted that they were all staring at Sherlock, in varying degrees of surprise or even distaste.

_I’m not the only one today seeing him for the first time since he… since we… since. How many of them even knew he’d be here? This could get interesting. Or ugly. Or embarrassing._

“We’re doing a couple of covers today,” said John, “This one’s by an American duo, the Civil Wars.” With that he stood back, nodded at Sherlock, then stepped up strumming a note, matched by the violin, and the two men sang a set of plaintive notes before the simple driving rhythm started and Sherlock took the lead in his distinctive baritone.

  _I’m a dead man walking here  
That’s the least of all my fears_

And John came in with a tenor harmony, the plaintiveness of the melody almost strident.

_Oooooh, underneath the water._

And they proceeded to sing about a murderer on the run, haunted by and unable to outrun his conscience. It seemed an echo of things she’d once told John, that she thought Sherlock would one day be the killer. Well, that turned out, so far, to have been about as accurate as anything else she’d ever said about that arrogant prick. Which was to say, not accurate at all.

The next song was the old Cave/Minogue duet about the man who brains a girl with a rock, and Greg and Molly sang that, Molly looking like she was thoroughly into the whole macabre schtick. Greg’s generally kind face developed a kind of creepy stare as he and Molly glared meaningfully at eavch other during the narrative sections of the song. Underneath it, there was a strange glint of delight. _They’re all a bit crazy._

Molly’s brand of macabre got another airing in the next song, which John announced as one by ‘the late, great Kirsty McColl’ and seemed to be about a serial killer, or a serial rapist or some other kind of creepy serial something. And she sang it with that sweet face and those big eyes, and there was Greg looking at her sing like she was the best thing since rainbows and puppies.

 _These songs_ , thought Sally Donovan, _don’t really seem appropriate material for a family day in the park._ The families seemed to be enjoying it, though. Some of the coppers less so, despite the fact that the tall, skinny git with the violin – the object of so much uncomfortable attention – appeared oblivious to them. Sherlock was busy watching John, singing, sometimes roaming the stage with a strange, lanky grace as he played his violin with and sometimes _at_ his band mates.

The next thing, they were back with another new song for the band, and John seemed a bit self conscious for a minute, but Sherlock grinned at him, and then he was away with it. Sally could tell there was a lot more going on in that lyric, and in Doctor John Watson’s brain, than anyone had ever guessed.

_And the light is never mine, it’s not my own  
I can reignite the flicker, or shut it down   
Switch the poles, repel; attract  
There’s two sides to every fact_

_If I’m conducting light  
What is it makes my darkness bright?  
Because I am, I am, I am illuminated_

And from there, without an introduction, the band suddenly drove into a song familiar to anyone who had watched the brawl footage from the festival gig: upwards of a million people, Sally remembered, from the counter when she’d viewed it last. The crowd cheered their appreciation and patently hoped for a similar showstopper today. A ridiculous hope, seeing as how the fete was crawling with police both in an out of uniform.

Still, you can always count on certain songs being magnets for trouble, and _Cry for Help_ did magnificent duty on that score. In the grass in front of the stage were three teenagers, two guys and a girl, who had picked up some stray golf balls in the car park on arrival and had been itching to throw them at something for a good half hour. This pack of oldies pretending to be rockers on stage was a target too juicy to resist.

The kids bided their time, because whatever else you could say about them, they had flair and a great sense of timing. They waited until the first chorus was done and for the second verse to start before, as one, they pulled their arms back and pitched three golf balls at the violinist, the lead guitarist and the bass player, lined up all neatly like pins.

What the kids had not expected, not in the least, in old people like that, were _reflexes_. Brilliant, sharply honed, _I’ve-been-attacked-with-hurtling-and-possibly-deadly-objects-before_ reflexes. These objects (hurled in circumstances both professional and domestic) included, but were not limited to, rocks, hand grenades, bottles, keys, wedding rings, knives, beakers, books, plates, flower pots, telephones and, on one memorable case, a selection of taxidermied finches.

As the ball came within a foot of his face, Sherlock stuck his bow in his teeth and caught the golf ball with his name on it with his right hand. He achieved this mere moments before John dropped his pick and snatched the golf ball aimed at him out of the air in front of his face, which occurred at almost exactly the same time as Greg swiped a hand in the space in front of his guitar and scooped a bright orange golf ball out of it.

When they’d stopped playing, Tad stopped drumming and Molly’s hands lifted from the keyboard, and the two of them looked to John.

Sherlock was rolling the golf ball in his fingers, glaring at the kids in the front row who, shocked to stillness, had failed to take off after the spectacular failure of their golf ball assault. The violinist looked very much like he was about to pitch the hard, white ball straight back at them and damn the consequences. The lead guitarist looked like he’d very much like to do the same but had the resigned expression of someone who knew he was meant to be the grown up. The older guy was scowling like cops did whenever they were about to shove these particular (and notorious) kids into the Black Maria preparatory to calling social services.

Sally, along with the rest of the crowd, was holding her breath to see what would happen in the next three seconds.

Which was this.

Molly whistled, a sharp ‘over here’ sound. Greg looked at her, grinned, and tossed her his orange golf ball. Sherlock and John both glanced at her and she wriggled the fingers of one hand in a distinct ‘gimme’ motion. Greg, laughing now, jerked his head in her direction, encouraging the other two to relinquish their weapons. Eyebrows raised in a question, John tossed Molly his golf ball and, after a surly second, Sherlock did the same.

Molly caught them both easily, then looked down on the three teens. “That’s not how to throw a golf ball,” she said into the mic, in her friendly, breezy voice.

And then she began to juggle.

_To juggle._

_Golf balls._

Pitching them high, then low, then doing trick shots over her elbows, under her leg, behind her back.

And the crowd stared, fixated at the silent stage, and watched the chirpy woman heckle the would-hecklers with a pretty impressive and certainly family-friendly party trick.

Greg, grinning and full of proud delight, picked out some kind of circus melody on his bass, and John started laughing his head off. Sherlock was just peering at her, as though trying to work out how she did it.

“Ready Tad?!” Molly called out over her shoulder.

Tad stood up at his drum kit.

“For what?”

“Hit ‘em for six, Taddy!” And one by one, Molly tossed the golf balls over her shoulder towards him and Tad, holding one drumstick like a teeny cricket bat, knocked the golf balls, one by one, into the wings, Greg playing each one off with a short riff.

When the last ball was gone, Molly bowed to the audience, Tad gave her a drum flourish, and everyone cheered. Except the teens who had slunk away, annoyed and embarrassed, and hoping to evade the distracted police who were belatedly looking for someone to arrest.

“How about we skip that one,” suggested John into the mic, “Seems to bring us weird luck. Want to finish the first set?”

Molly yelled “ACKA DACKA!” into her mic, which seemed to decide the matter, and Collared launched into a version of AC/DC’s Jailbreak, with added mad violin and crazed keyboards.

 _Crazy_ , thought Sally Donovan, _every last one of them._

She wished she felt half as happy with her life as every last one of them looked with theirs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here are YouTube links to songs from Collared's first set:
> 
> [Adrenaline ](http://youtu.be/hWf1Zvmg7PM)
> 
> [Where the Wild Roses Grow ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDpnjE1LUvE)
> 
> [Can’t Stop Killing You ](http://youtu.be/n_Fvu0SQEOA)
> 
> Illuminted: has no YouTube video. Or even music. Oh well.
> 
> [Cry For Help ](http://youtu.be/TKRXWQ2bDmA)
> 
> [Jailbreak ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYou7SqyDdo)


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the break between sets, Sally Donovan meets a fan of Gladstone's Collar, sees Sherlock hug someone, has an argument with Tad Anderson and overhears a wrestling match. Molly shows her ferocious side. John gets grumpy.

“Excuse me, do you know if John Watson’s in there?”

Sally, stationed a discreet distance from the green room tent, turned to see a plump, dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties looking at her hopefully. Sally blinked at her.

“Yes. He… they went in a minute ago.” Sally had withdrawn so that they hadn’t seen her, and was waiting for Taddy to come out, as he’d promised.

“Do you think he’d mind if I asked him to… “ The woman waved a CD nervously in front of Sally, “Sign this? Only, I was such a huge fan, and it’s so good to see him playing again. Gladstone’s Collar meant the world to me, back then. It was like he made a voice for things I was feeling. I don’t know what he’s been up to all these years, but it I cried when the band broke up. Seriously, I had such a crush on him in the 90s. He’s still hot, don’t you think?” The breathless babble came to an uncertain stop.

Sally hadn’t replied because she was busy staring at the CD cover she’d taken out of the woman’s hand. This, she supposed, must have been the first Gladstone’s Collar album that Taddy used to go on about so much. He’d only had their music on tape, not the original CD, which had been thrown out by his wife in their early days together – a fact he used to lament a lot when he first found out that Sherlock’s John Watson had been the lead singer and composer of his favourite band from his youth.

This CD was in excellent condition, the purple-tinted cover pristine within a clean, unscratched case. Sally couldn’t stop staring at it: at the three-quarter picture of the young John Watson, glaring out at her in mixed defiance and vulnerability, the dark blue of his eye matched in the blue of the title. He was wearing a ridiculously butch, spiked a dog collar, his mussed hair falling haphazardly over his brow. It made him look… half feral. Or only half tame. Half something, anyway, but it teetered so neatly on the edge of safe/not safe that she couldn’t look away.

Good god, but it was appealing. Sally wondered what Doctor Sex would look like in a collar these days. She found the image thoroughly distracting. She wondered briefly if Tad would look as hot in that getup. Or Greg… and then her brain took her inexorably toward picturing Sherlock Holmes in the damned thing, and then she swallowed hard and tried not to think about it.

“Sorry,” the woman was saying, blushing, “It’s silly, I know…”

“He’s… ah… I’m sure he’d be fine. With the autograph.” Sally snapped to a kind of attention and firmly handed the CD back to the woman. She flinched when the woman smiled knowingly at her.

“They say he’s donated a couple of copies of this to the auction for this afternoon. But I suppose you can just get one from him directly.”

Sally realised that the woman thought Sally was the band’s bouncer.

“Yeah, sure,” she said, “Look, just go on in, I’m sure it’s fine.” She didn’t really care if it was fine or not at this point, as long as she could be left alone to scrub her brain free of images of various members of Collared in collars. _Good god._

The woman smiled and made a beeline for the tent, bumping briefly into Taddy on his way out. He nodded at her with a small smile, and walked over to Sally’s spot at the edge of the tent.

“How’d you like the show?” he asked tentatively.

She softened. “You were great. You look at home up there.”

Anderson’s smile broadened. “It’s great fun. So.” His expression sobered. “What did you want to see me about?”

 _Nothing. Everything._ Sally still had no real idea why she was here. “I just wanted to see how you were,” she said carefully, “I haven’t heard from you in a long time. I wanted… Are you well? I heard you finally got away from your wife.”

Anderson shrugged. “I packed a bag and left and I haven’t been back. I’m not sure she’s actually noticed. I finally convinced her to sign the divorce papers, when she realised I really wasn’t coming home. So. Yeah. I’m fine. On my own, but good. Really good. Best I’ve ever been.”

And he looked it. He looked happy, confident and together in a way she’d never seen. _So much for I miss you and I want you back._ But that’s not what Sally really wanted either.

“And you’re okay. Working with _him_ I mean.”

Anderson regarded her with a disapproving frown. “You still don’t like him, do you?”

“What’s to like? Sherlock Holmes is an arrogant prick who likes walking all over other people just to prove how fucking clever he is. All right, so he’s not actually a psychopath. That doesn’t make him a saint.”

“He’s not as bad as all that.”

“Jesus, Tad, can you hear yourself? Since when did you sign up to the Sherlock Holmes fan club? He was always a bastard to you.” Sally found that she was breathing hard, feeling angry and confused.

Anderson shrugged. “I didn’t say he wasn’t an arrogant bastard at times. He’s still demanding and rude and downright cruel sometimes.”

“Right.”

“But…” A frown creased his brow.

“And look at him, swanning around, showing off up there on stage, like the rest of you aren’t even there.”

At this, Anderson looked astonished. “He really doesn’t.”

“Tad, I’ve just spent half an hour watching him, prancing about like a prima fucking donna.”

“No, Sally, he really, really doesn’t. Were you even watching?”

Sally scowled at him, because she’d been able to watch almost nothing _but_ Sherlock Holmes, flitting about the stage with that oddly graceful bend and sway, playing and singing like he was born to it. “The audience can’t keep their eyes off him and he just soaks it up,” she growled.

Anderson shook his head, which only pissed her off some more. “Sherlock doesn’t really notice the audience,” Anderson stated, “He doesn’t do it for them.”

“That’s because it’s all about him, the prick.”

“No it isn’t. Back when we did that festival gig it was, a bit, but not any more. I mean, he does play for himself, I guess, we all do, but mostly I think he plays for John.” Anderson looked thoughtful. “Sometimes for the rest of us, but it’s mostly John he watches. He doesn’t ever seem to notice the audience at all.”

Sally wanted to protest that assessment, but Anderson continued in that same thoughtful tone. “And he is an arrogant sod sometimes but… you have to admit, he’s good, Sally. He’s very bloody good at what he does.”

“He doesn’t have to be such a vicious sod about it to everyone else.”

“Hmm. He isn’t always. Not in the band, anyway. He’s obviously a much better musician than the rest of us but actually, a lot of the time he… well, he raises the bar, I suppose, and everyone else tries to be better. John reckons that’s the point of genius. To make us try harder, not to make us give up in despair.”

Sally muttered something uncomplimentary about John Watson’s view of Sherlock Holmes’s reputed genius.

“He is, though,” Anderson insisted. “Just because he’s a rude, offensive arse doesn’t mean he’s not.”

“He’s a freak.”

At last, she’d made Anderson bristle. “I know you think so. I used to think so. But you know something? Sherlock is a brilliant violinist, and even if he’s a dick half the time, you wouldn’t call him a freak just for being a violin virtuoso. You’d just point out he was a great musician. I guess it’s that he’s a virtuoso in deduction as well. What he doesn’t know about forensic evidence and analysis is hardly worth knowing. He’s making me a better policeman as well as a better drummer by setting that bar so high, now I’ve stopped being offended by him being so much better at it than I am. And it turns out that making the effort to improve is making him less of an arsehole, so maybe there’s something in that.”

Sally wanted to argue the point, argue out her feelings of shock and betrayal at Tad’s unexpected and spirited defence of a man who used to leave them both feeling belittled and furious, but they were interrupted by the arrival of an older woman carrying a heavy Tupperware container and looking harried.

The woman paused and gave Tad a worried look.

“I forgot to drop these off with the other things before, Tad, and Sherlock asked for them especially. Oh, and you did a lovely job up there, very nice.” She nodded warmly, “Makes me wish I could still dance. Only I have a hip now.”

“Hey, Mrs Hudson,” Tad waved her towards the tent, “He’s been complaining about not having them. Apparently John burned breakfast, or a pony ate it or something.”

Mrs Hudson nodded, as if this was only to be expected, thanked Anderson and stepped up to the tent. No sooner had she called ‘yoo-hoo!’ through the flap than Sherlock Holmes himself appeared, scooping her into a brief hug, kissing her cheek and then whisking away the container.

“John! Breakfast! Or rather, lunch!” he called out as he disappeared, Mrs Hudson on his heels, “Oh, stop swooning over him,” Sally heard him say waspishly to someone Sally presumed to be the Gladstone’s Collar fan, “He’s signed the damned thing now; don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“Sherlock!” John, sounding annoyed and a bit embarrassed.

“What? _What?_ If she was gushing about the music I could understand it, but gushing about seeing you onstage in a _collar_? What’s the point of that? Very stimulating, I’m sure, if you like that sort of thing. But it was twenty years ago and frankly you look ridiculous.”

“Says the man who this morning was in jodhpurs and riding boots.”

“Perfectly sensible attire.”

“Yeah, the very thing to wear while unsuccessfully secreting ponies in priest holes and _squealing_ when it panics.”

“Right. No scones for you.”

“Hey! Give that here.”

The sound of scuffling ensued, and an _oof!_ of one body tackling another, and a hoot of laughter, then more scuffling and finally a crow of triumph and Mrs Hudson’s sharp admonishment: “ _Boys!_ Really!”

Sally realised that Tad was laughing at her astonished expression. “Yeah, they’re like that a lot of the time.”

And Sally considered how she’d never seen Sherlock in any context except being an impatient, bad mannered, cold-blooded prat at a crime scene. That he had some kind of a mother figure in his life that he _hugged_ was… bewildering.

At that moment, Greg Lestrade and Molly Hooper made a strategic withdrawal from the tent. Sally caught Greg’s eye and flinched. It’s not that he glared or scowled. He was just… very neutral. Sally remembered when her old DI would smile when he saw her. Not any more. Probably never again.

He looked well, though. And until he’d spotted her, he looked happy, an arm around Molly Hooper’s waist, smiling at her.

“Nice spot of juggling,” Sally found herself saying, in an attempt to unfreeze the uncomfortable silence.

Molly beamed at her. “Thanks! My Gran taught me how. That and sword swallowing.”

“Remind me to thank your Gran some time,” said Greg, looking away from Sally and grinning at his circus-skilled girlfriend. Who blushed. Sally wondered why, then realised, then tried desperately to think of something to change the subject while Greg just laughed and kissed Molly on the neck. Anderson rolled his eyes, like he was used to this kind of behaviour.

 _Just like a pair of teenagers,_ thought Sally, half in disapproval, half wistful. She’d never been like that, even when she _was_ a teenager.

 _I don’t belong here_ , was her next thought, _I should go._

And she would have, only someone new arrived and she found herself staring. She’d seen him before, she was sure, this tall, cold, elegant man in the impeccable suit and the umbrella that looked like it cost more than her own entire wardrobe. He nodded to Greg, who nodded back.

He elegant man paused and flicked a stern glance back at the woman behind him, equally elegant, with an air of the utmost poise. Her carriage held a frisson of disdain, leavened by an unexpected, Mona Lisa smile. She was levelling this smile at Greg Lestrade.

“Hello,” she said, bright and cool, her gaze fixed on Greg like a missile targeting system.

“Hi.”

“You’re a very good bass player.”

“Thanks.” “You look good in those jeans,” Mona Lisa continued.

“…thanks.” Greg’s smile had begun warmly but now faltered slightly.

“Sexy.”

“ _Girlfriend_ ,” said Molly Hooper pointedly, her arm wrapped around Greg’s waist just has his was still wrapped around hers, “ _Right here_.”

The Mona Lisa’s gaze slipped briefly and dismissively to Molly, then back to Greg. “I’ll give you my number, Detective Inspector Lestrade. Greg.”

Greg blinked. Frowned. Looked at Molly, who was glaring ferociously at the elegant woman and was about to transfer the ferocious glare to her beloved. “I don’t need it,” he said hastily, then pressed his forehead and nose to Molly’s temple. “At all.” He brushed her cheek with his lips.

Molly relaxed a little, but her smile became strangely feral. “I can juggle,” she said emphatically to the interloper, “And _swallow swords_.”

Mona Lisa arched a deadly eyebrow, a gesture full of scorn, and Molly scowled back. “I work with cadavers,” Molly said, slipping from feral to downright steely, “And Sherlock Holmes. I once dated _Jim Moriarty_. _You don’t scare me_.”

“If you’ve quite finished?” said the elegant man to the Mona Lisa woman, with a tiny stab of his umbrella into the ground.

“Yes sir, sorry, sir,” his assistant said, her smile now a shade disappointed.

“Hello, Mycroft,” said a weary voice. John Watson had arrived, ushering out his pinkly-blushing fan, who had a signed CD in one hand and a slightly battered scone in the other. The fan went one way, Mycroft and his assistant disappeared into the tent, and John gave Greg a baleful look.

“I’ve been trying to ask that woman on a date for three years,” he said in a tone of disgust, “Three years. She still doesn’t even know my name. And she won’t tell me hers. And you… just… in your _jeans_ and your _bass guitar_ and…” John made a suspiciously sulky growl and stalked back inside.

Greg grinned at the vanished doctor, squeezed his sword-swallowing and sometimes fierce love in a tight embrace and said: “I thought you only had coffee with Jim-from-IT.”

Molly sniffed. “And I dumped _him_.”

“Good.”

Sally had to turn away from witnessing the imminent snog.

“I guess I’ll…” she began to say to Anderson.

“I suppose I’d…” Anderson began at the same time.

“It was… good to see you. Looking so well.”

“You too. I hope you like your new team.”

She didn’t really, but there was no point saying so. “Yeah. They’re fine.”

“You staying for the rest of the gig?”

“I don’t…”

“Watch him,” Anderson said suddenly, “Sherlock I mean. The first song of the second set. Watch him. You’ll see what I mean, about him not noticing the crowd.”

“Okay.” Sally thought she might, at that, because she just couldn’t understand Tad at all any more. Maybe if she could see what he saw, it would make sense. Anderson’s relieved smile made her feel like it was worth the effort, anyway.

“Take care, Taddy.”

“Yeah. You too.”

She didn’t worry about farewelling her old boss. He was sort of busy with Molly just then anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This image of the first Gladstone's Collar album was made for me by natsuko1978 over at Livejournal! It made me kind of breathless.
> 
> [ Gladstone's Collar](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/221b_hound/48486131/16189/original.jpg)


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft drops in to see his brother. Awkwardness happens. John tries to get Not!Anthea's attention. Nothing happens. John and Sherlock sort of plan their diamond jubilee.

Sherlock took one look at Mycroft and scowled. His first impulse after that was to clutch at the container of scones, but his second was to grin unpleasantly and thrust the container under Mycroft’s nose.

“Scone, Mycroft? They’re delicious.”

Mycroft’s nostrils twitched, just a little, at the rich scent, and Sherlock’s unpleasant grin was just a little triumphant.

“If you’re quite done,” said Mycroft, irritated that he’d been undone, however momentarily, by a _scone_.

“Oh, I’m quite done,” agreed Sherlock, and he swept away to offer scones pointedly to Mrs Hudson, who took one agreeably.

John stood just beside the space Sherlock had just vacated, hands in his pockets, attempting to peer meaningfully at the woman he knew as Anthea. Anthea, standing a little behind her boss, never once looked up from her Blackberry.

John sighed. “So. Mycroft. I'm impressed at you making such an effort to come and tell us how much you hate our music. Are you going to try to dissuade Sherlock from playing with us again?"  
  
Mycroft raised an eyebrow, but John's tone was more bantering than bitter. Well, maybe a little bitter, but not about the band.

"You're still angry that I went to collect him without you."

Mycroft’s eyes darted in Sherlock’s direction, as Sherlock ducked out of the tent flap to the Mycroft-free outdoors, followed by Mrs Hudson. . An irritated exclamation of: “You two, _really_ , is that necessary _all the time_. God, Lestrade, Molly, no, I don’t want to watch you jointly eating a scone.” Molly’s peal of laughter drowned whatever exclamation of horror Sherlock next expressed.  
  
"I'm not..." John held his breath on whatever he'd planned to say next. Then he exhaled slowly. "A little. It was a shitty thing to do to us."  
  
"I wouldn't expect you to really understand, John..."  
  
"But I do. I get it. Does he?"  
  
Mycroft narrowed his eyes at John, but didn't even try to pretend he didn't know what John was getting at.  
  
"Perhaps. He hasn't spent much time with me since returning to Baker Street. I didn't imagine he would. There is too much forgiveness required. What a dreadful concept. _Forgiveness_." Mycroft managed to look both wistful and disdainful at the same time. He looked surprised when John laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.  
  
"You're both pretty bad at it," John said, "You might find it easier to just let it go. Forgive him. Forgive yourself. Just... let it go."  
  
"If only it were that simple."  
  
"It could be."  
  
"It really couldn't."  
  
With a sigh, John gave it up. "So to what do we owe the pleasure?"  
  
“Nothing,” said Mycroft simply, “I am not here to see either of you. I merely thought it would be polite to drop in.”

“And god knows you’re all about the manners,” said John, but he allowed a twitch of a smile to soften the sting of it.

“Yes. Well.” Mycroft leaned on his umbrella and looked at his shoes.

The woman who wasn’t Anthea looked at her boss’s face, pursed her lips slightly and said, very quietly, “We should go sir, if you want to speak to her before she leaves.”

“Yes. Of course. Go ahead, will you?”

She left immediately, without once acknowledging John’s presence. He sighed. He didn’t really want to date her any more, but trying to get her attention had become something of a personal challenge. Which he failed on a semi regular basis.

Outside, Sherlock’s baritone murmur was making Greg respond in exasperation with “Do you have to do this now?” and Tad was saying: “I can see what you mean about the asthma and the dog, and even the vintage car, but how do you know he’s got a lover in Bath? Because if you mean the tie, I’m telling you, I got one like that from my ex-wife once, and I’m pretty sure she only gave it to me because she knew I’d hate it.”

“God, you as well?” Lestrade replied, “My ex used to get me I Hate You presents too. Why is it always ties?”

“It’s because awful ties are so easy to find. Obviously,” said Sherlock.

“Don’t pull that face, Sherlock,” John heard Molly say, “Not unless you want me to get you an I Hate You tie as well.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“With kittens in bowler hats, on a background of violets…”

“You don’t even… oh my god. You do. You know where to get one.” A small groan escaped Sherlock, then his voice emerged firm and biting. “I don’t wear ties. And if you give me that one, I will positively burn it.”

John lifted his chin and said, loudly enough for his voice to carry to the outside, “If Molly buys you that tie, Sherlock, I will personally take it off you and wear it in your presence at home for a month.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Sherlock shouted back.

“After what happened last week with the mix-up between the toothpaste and the wood glue, you just watch me dare.”

Sherlock stuck his head inside the tent again. “I think we agreed that was entirely your fault,” he said, “And had the side benefit of saving your life that afternoon when you weren’t actually able to eat the poisoned sushi.”

“I concede the point,” said John affably, “Now say something nice to your brother.”

Sherlock glared at Mycroft, tilted his head slightly to look at John’s mildly expectant expression, then looked back at his brother. Sherlock moved wholly inside the tent and stood, hand on hip, considering.

The silence stretched for a moment longer and finally, Sherlock said: “Thank you for getting me home, Mycroft. I’d have preferred to be there sooner, but I suppose you needed a debrief.”

Mycroft’s mouth twitched. “Yes,” he said, “I did. And you needed medical care.”

“John’s a doctor,” said Sherlock frostily.

“Not to impugn the good doctor’s skills,” said Mycroft coolly, “But you needed the best.”

“Nonetheless.”

“Oh, no, that’s not impugning my skills at all,” murmured John, but the brothers ignored him.

“Are we done?” Sherlock demanded.

“Yes. We are. Good day, Dr Watson. Sherlock.”

Mycroft sauntered in his insouciant way past Sherlock and away into the day.

Sherlock scowled after him before turning to John.

John shrugged. “I think he just wanted to see that you were all right.”

“Of course he did. That’s all he ever wants. To poke and pry and control everything. He won’t even admit what a mess he made of it. Him and bloody Moriarty.”

“He did say he was sorry.”

“To you. To pass on to me. He’s a coward as well as a bully.”

John hesitated over his reply, because he didn’t think Mycroft Holmes was either of those things, although he was sometimes things that came quite close to both.

“He loves you,” John said at last, “You’re his brother.”

“You’re a better brother to me than he ever was.”

“But I’m a lousy brother to Harry,” John confessed.

“No. You are a better brother than she deserves. She’s a lousy sister. She and Mycroft should join forces and plot ways to make us both more miserable. With luck, they’ll simply drive each other insane. And don’t try to defend Harry to me. I was there on your birthday, I heard what she said, both to and about you.”

“Yeah,” John failed to defend Harry as much as he failed to defend Mycroft. Family was family, and you might love them, but that didn’t mean you always liked them very much. Too much history, too much hurt. Families gave each other wounds that took forever to heal, sometimes, even with love lying underneath it all. The pain that sprang from wounded love could be unyieldingly unforgiving.

“Give us thirty years of knowing each other, Sherlock. Maybe then we’ll have enough baggage to be unbearable to each other, too.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, John. If you didn’t find me unbearable to start with, I can’t imagine you’ll become less tolerant with time. And I find you considerably less irritating than I did at the start…”

“Well, thank you,” John huffed out in a laugh.

“You know what I mean. Generally, I find you more satisfactory as time passes, rather than less so.”

John flashed Sherlock a broad grin. “I guess I’m still here after the wood glue incident, leaving me behind at countless crime scenes and that appalling smell you made with that last chemical explosion in the living room.”

“And I’m still here after the destruction of two vital experiments, your evil temper of a morning before your second cup of tea, and your threat about Molly’s godawful kitten tie.”

“Looks like we’re probably good for the next thirty years, then.”

“Good. I really don’t have the inclination to break in a new flatmate.”

“How many did you break before me, anyway?”

“Four or five. I don’t know if I _broke_ them really. Most of them just… went away.”

“Idiots,” John declared.

“Oh, don’t think I’m not grateful to them,” Sherlock grinned as though sharing a secret, “Their leaving meant that I had need of a flatmate when _you_ needed one. And you _stayed_.”

“I should definitely send them individual thank you cards, then,” John agreed, grinning back, “Invite them to the thirty year anniversary, at least.”

People began shoving past Sherlock, still loitering just inside the tent entrance.

“Up again in ten minutes,” Greg declared, “Stop planning what you’re going to for your pearl anniversary, you plonkers. Just assume we’ll all be there with gifts and cards, if you both haven’t driven the rest of us mad by then. In which case you can come and see me in the home. And bring scotch.”

“And streamers,” said Molly.

“I’ll bring the dips,” said Tad absent-mindedly, grabbing his sticks and twirling them in his nimble fingers like little batons, “And maybe a lover from Bath.”

 


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft thinks some very thinky thoughts and acknowledges that sometimes one has to do penance before forgiveness can be granted. Sally Donovan thinks a defiant song might be about her. Sherlock and Anderson have surprising onstage rapport. Mycroft says something that intrigues Donovan.

Mycroft emerged into the sunlight and paused, taking a breath, holding it for two, three, four seconds. Exhaled slowly, dispelling sadness with it. Sadness was only so many chemicals, conjured by the limbic system. He was not a slave to his amygdala, no.

But Mycroft Holmes remembered his surge of joy, when he knew Sherlock was still alive, as fresh and as piercingly as he remembered the agony of the arm he broke when he was eight and waited for three hours for someone to find him at the foot of the oak tree. No matter the years he had spent trying to school the memory out of his body and brain, it remained. Emotion was not an advantage, no, but it taught you lessons. It could be separated from the self; compartmentalised and considered. Eventually, it could tell you something worth knowing.

The fact was that Mycroft Holmes loved his little brother. Beyond reason. Certainly to no clear advantage. A further fact was that Mycroft Holmes was singularly appalling at communicating this important point to the brother in question. Yet another fact was that Mycroft Holmes had finally realised that he had no idea what was best for his little brother, either, except that whatever it was, it always included a short, sardonic, quite ordinary, somewhat battered ex army doctor with a penchant for danger and often but not always dreadful music.

_Forgive him. Forgive yourself._

Mycroft loathed it when John Watson was right about anything. That man should not be clever enough to see things that a Holmes couldn’t.  John Watson had no idea, even, why Sherlock might need forgiveness from Mycroft. Though doubtless he now knew Sherlock well enough to have a general sense of it without needing specifics. But forgive Sherlock? Mycroft could do that in a heartbeat, he found. Whether Sherlock would accept such a sentiment, or even accept that it was required, was another matter.

And as for Mycroft forgiving himself – for Moriarty, for the preceding lifetime of slights and revenges and attempts to control and attempts to not care – Mycroft knew that simply forgiving himself for his trespasses against Sherlock required more than a stern word to his own subconscious. No. For that, penance was required.

Mycroft saw her then, and nodded to his assistant, standing behind his target. She caught the movement, although it seemed she was totally focused on her Blackberry, and nodded back before pocketing the phone and disappearing at a steady walk through the crowd.

Mycroft, with his delicate, measured step, slid his quiet way through the crowd gathered in front of the stage to stand near her. Sergeant Sally Donovan. The woman was frowning, her body tense but her manner uncertain.

 _You don’t even know why you’re still here, do you Sergeant Donovan?_ Mycroft thought _. It’s because you miss them. Your DI, your lover, your old team. You’re still trying to understand what happened; how you lost it all._

Donovan’s chin lifted, her eyes sparked, as the band returned to the stage. John Watson took the lead, as he always did on stage, leaning into the microphone to say “This one’s Greg’s.”

And the DI drove into the song with a thrumming bass riff, the drums coming in beside it, a fast four-four time split into driving notes, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, and **one-two** , the last two beats a heavy, final statement, a rhythm that drove the entire song, drove John’s guitar in a counterpoint line over the top and drove the keyboard and the violin, and on stage there was a unanimous joyful kind of rage as the police detective growled into the mic.

Mycroft heard the gasp, saw the sergeant’s back stiffen, her mouth open slightly as if about to protest. _You think this song is about you._ _That is your guilty conscience talking to you, sergeant. It could as easily be about me, if Sherlock was singing it._

Then Donovan’s mouth closed in a firm line, suppressing the notion. _Yes, you realise that’s an egotistical thought. But… why are you watching Sherlock?_

Mycroft followed her critical gaze, and flicked the occasional glance back at her, tracing her thought processes.

_You hate him. You hate that you were wrong about him, but you still hate him. You blame him for your current state of unhappiness, even though you accept that the fault is really your own. You… oh. Yes. This surprises you. That it’s not about him. It surprised me too, at first._

What they saw was Sherlock, immersed in the violin and his bandmates. He had a natural showmanship, but he hardly saw the sea of people ranged in front of them. Instead, Sherlock enfolded himself in the music, his body arching and folding and extending and whirling with the demands of the bow and violin, the call of the man beside him, likewise an extension of his instrument. Every person on that stage moved in a way that somehow connected them with every other person there. Without any need for formal choreography, the music and their friendship gave natural sway and flow to how they moved. They sang into microphones, but they sang to each other.

The second verse began and Donovan flinched, even though no-one on that stage was looking at her or, most probably, even thinking of her.

_You started something that you just couldn't stop  
You turned the ones that you love into the angriest mob  
And their one last wish is that you pay for it  
And there's no way you're getting out of this_

Greg Lestrade hurled his joyful-angry voice into the crowd.

_Who do you think you are  
Tearing us all apart?  
Where did you think you could go?  
'Cause everyone already knows,  
It’s 20 to 1  
Yeah, so you better run!!!_

And they powered into the chorus again, these five misfits, as though this noise and this defiance actively nourished them, like Muskateers swearing an oath.

_You’re like the burden we bear  
You’re all the hate that we share  
You want more  
You want more?  
But you’ll get nothing from me  
Enemies_

Sherlock, his instrument allowing him more freedom than keyboards and drums, shifted around the stage, his body led by notes and beats, singing into whichever microphone was closest if he wasn’t near his own, although he always came back, as though John’s gravitational pull was irresistible. Which, effectively, it was.

But then the wordless musical bridge inhabited the stage and there was Sherlock, whirling away from the mic he’d just shared with Lestrade, bending his knees and leaning forward as though throwing the frenzy of notes at the drummer, who caught them and threw them back in an increasingly ferocious crash; their shoulders angled and pushing, but in time, in rhythm, so it wasn’t antagonism but sparring. Sherlock rose up on the balls of his feet, his body attenuating, and the drummer – Anderson, thought Mycroft – Anderson began lifting his arms higher on the up-beat, the tips of this sticks reaching as high as Sherlock’s bow before each downbeat before Greg finally broke in with _Where did you think you could go?_ and Sherlock whirled away, leaving Anderson grinning like a loon behind his drums.

Sergeant Donovan, Mycroft saw, closed her eyes, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

 _Dispelling sadness. This might work._ She needed it, as much as he did.

The crowd roared approval at the end of the song, and the players grinned at each other, before the keyboard player – like John, a far more remarkable person than she at first appeared – began to sing about a bad romance while giving the bass player an unusually predatory, eat-you-alive look that he looked surprisingly delighted to be receiving.

Sergeant Sally Donovan turned to leave. Mycroft Holmes fell into step beside her. Her sideways look at him was full of suspicion, but she didn’t break her stride.

“And what do you want, then?” she asked, challenging and a little waspish.

Mycroft’s mouth lifted on one side in a slight smile. “A few moments of your time, Sergeant Donovan.”

“You’re his brother, aren’t you?” She jerked her head towards the stage.

“I am, yes.”

“I’m pretty sure I don’t need to hear anything you have to say to me.”

“Oh, Sergeant, I am absolutely certain that you are wrong. You need to hear everything I have to say to you. What’s more, I am absolutely certain that when I have finished saying what I have to say, and I ask you the question that I intend to ask, you will say yes. Gladly and emphatically.”

That at least made her stop walking, although the look she gave him was easily as unimpressed and verging on poisonous as any John Watson had given him in countless interviews.

“You reckon?”

“I am very confident, yes.”

“All right then. Talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first song of the second set is Enemies by Shinedown (although we're going to pretend that Greg and John wrote it together for Collared. You can decide who you think they wrote it about). [Here's Shinedown with Enemies on MusicRadar ](http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/world-premiere-shinedown-enemies-video-553175) (Warning: there is quite savage simulated violence in the video).
> 
> Then Molly covers Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. It's very possibly what she and Greg think of as Their Song. [Here's Joseph Gordon-Levitt doing a live cover of it](http://youtu.be/x6zMwGkY7z4) because, you know. JOSEPH GORDON-FUCKING-LEVITT! No other reason, really.
> 
> As an additional treat, I've decided that this song by The Matches is another of Collared's warm up songs: [Darkness Rising.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TRQwzAZ-3k)


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft finally has a word or fifty with Sally Donovan. He has an awful lot to say, and a proposal. Sally makes a decision. And then... then there is a problem

Despite Sally Donovan’s crisp instruction to talk, Mycroft Holmes took his time, just as he always did. He turned away from her and faced the stage, where that ridiculous band continued to play. Mycroft gathered his thoughts, leaning on the handle of his umbrella, and watched the way his brother was completely absorbed by the music and the motion.

Mycroft waited until, with his peripheral vision, he saw Donovan also return her attention to the stage.

“Look at him,” said Mycroft in his careful, precise tones. “Sherlock Holmes is not the man he was. Anyone could see it.” He saw Donovan scowl and the corner of his mouth twitched in a smile. “I used to worry ceaselessly about him, you know.  I don’t worry quite so much any more. About the drugs, particularly. He has this, now. Music, the people he plays for. This is how he makes his mind still. It's astonishing. Who knew he would ever find solace and respite from the constant storm of his mind in this? And it is a storm, a maelstrom, if you will. He is the man who notices everything.”

“And can’t keep a word of it to himself,” muttered Donovan.

“Quite often, no,” Mycroft agreed, “It’s the family’s fault, I suppose. We encouraged him. Such a bright child, so precocious, so very clever.” He pursed his lips, as though considering how much to say, although he had made his mind up on this point days ago.

“Children, of course, do see things and say things that adults think inadvisable to draw attention to – out of the mouths of babes, you know. Children are generally forgiven, but not Sherlock, because he saw more than other children, and told what he saw. He didn't know he was doing anything wrong, of course. He was just a child. He was told to be truthful, and to be proud of his gifts. And then one day, all the things that had made him special and loved were the same things that made him reviled. A freak.  He was six years old. He didn’t understand, and then he did, and both the confusion and the subsequent understanding wounded him. Do you see?”

Donovan was frowning. He could see her thinking ‘freak’ and then thinking of a six year old boy, much too bright for other people’s comfort.

“But look at him now, Sergeant Donovan, with friends, with music, a brilliant mind but with a heart after all. We have made him a better man, you and I, by nearly destroying him.” He gave her a brittle smile in response to her searching look, “Oh, I played my part, giving that monster James Moriarty more ammunition than he could have dreamed of, because I thought I was _clever_. I usually am, but for this one miscalculation. And, as John Watson so bluntly put it, I handed an arsenal to my brother’s worst enemy, and the detonation device, and then I set the madman free to play his game.”

Mycroft waited. Donovan, after a moment, finally asked the question. “Why are you telling me all this? Why are you _saying_ all this to me?” Her voice was edged with distress and anger.

“Because I know that you understand,” said Mycroft, “Even if Sherlock Holmes is a better man than he once was, it's not an excuse. If we did him a favour, it was a cruel one. Sherlock should have died at St Barts. The fact that he found a way out of that trap is not down to us but to his own genius and the help of an unexpected friend. He already had friends, of course, more than even he realised. And I know of four separate occasions during the year he was missing when he came within a hair’s breadth of dying.  Yet he kept at it, dismantling Moriarty’s criminal organisation. And we know he didn't do it for the greater good. He did it because he wanted the people he loved to be safe, and because he could not come home until they were. Think what a strange sentence that is, for a man like Sherlock Holmes. _The people he loved._ _Home_.”

Donovan’s mouth was compressed in a thin line. Her eyes were fixed on the stage, shifting from person to person. Occasionally, her gaze would drop to regard the woman in a floral frock grinning and clapping along. Mrs Hudson, out of place yet in absolutely the right place. Once or twice Donovan saw Sherlock bow in his landlady’s direction, his fingers light on the violin bow, his bright eyes and a flash of a smile lighting on her briefly before flashing back to John, to Greg, to Molly, even to Taddy. The band had moved on from _Bad Romance_ , through John singing _Battlefield_ and on to Tad enthusiastically singing lead on _I Fought the Law._ His voice wasn’t strong, but it suited this piece. Donovan looked both proud and hurt by his achievement.

“It would be easy if we could be Machiavellian about it,” continued Mycroft, “God knows, I try. But it isn’t only Sherlock we nearly destroyed. Between us, we nearly destroyed them too.”

Mycroft heard the breath catch in the sergeant’s throat, even through the band’s tumult. He was listening for it, expecting it, because she did indeed understand. Sherlock may have emerged from this trial by fire a changed man, but the truth was that between them, he and Sergeant Donovan had almost destroyed many people without an inkling that this – this messy, joyful alchemy of music and affection they could see on the stage – would be the result. They could not take the credit for an outcome they had never envisioned. This outcome was built from genius and belief and persistence and, loathe as Mycroft was to admit it, from love, loyalty and forgiveness. It as made in spite of ego and bitterness and suspicion and calculated game-playing.  

“Moriarty planned to kill them,” said Mycroft, “He failed because Sherlock outplayed him, but our actions endangered their lives on an ongoing basis. We almost ended DI Lestrade’s career. We made barriers between people who cared for each other. We made pain and loss because we thought we knew best. We thought we knew what we were doing. And we didn’t. We had no idea. The fact of this…” Mycroft waved his hand in an elegant gesture that encompassed the band and Mrs Hudson, “… happy ending does not absolve us.”

Sergeant Donovan’s silence continued for a while longer, but Mycroft waited. He had still a little of his speech to make, but he knew strategic silence would be rewarded.

“No,” said Sergeant Donovan at last, “It doesn’t.”

Mycroft looked down at his hands folded over the hook of his umbrella. Lyrics of one of Collared’s own songs washed over them; words Mycroft recalled John singing quietly during one of their long, painful vigils, waiting for calls that sometimes did not come. John had never played this for Sherlock during that terrible year. It had been too sad and plaintive a thing to say then, no help to Sherlock or to John either, merely a cry of helplessness and anxiety.

_Put your hand in the air if you hear me out there  
I’ve been looking for you day and night  
Shine a light in the dark, let me see where you are  
‘Cause I’m not going to leave you behind_

It sounded different now. Fierce and triumphant. Now they seemed to sing it to each other, even though their eyes did not meet. They didn’t need to, playing shoulder to shoulder as they were, voices and instruments twining together, distinct but complementary.

_If I told you that you’re not alone  
And I showed you this is where you belong  
Put your hand in the air one more time_

These two lost men, thought Mycroft, with only a little envy, will never be lost again. Certainly not if Mycroft had anything to say about it. And he had rather a lot to say about it, as it happened.

“It’s not over, Sergeant,” Mycroft said. He raised his chin and tilted his head to look at her. She was looking right back at him now, eyes bright with suspicion and expectation.

“Sherlock tore the heart out of Moriarty's organisation. But likea cancer, the thing will not die. Cuttings of it have come to rest and are rebuilding. Breeding, here in Great Britain as well as on the continent, Asia, the Americas. There are survivors from Moriarty’s reign who know the greatest threat to them comes not from MI5 or Interpol or any of a dozen government organisations, but from those two men up there, and if they ever find their feet again, your DI, my brother, his landlady, that infuriating Dr Watson, your former lover and that courageous mortuary attendant may all be in danger again. There’s a lot of work to be done. And _we_ have an unpaid debt.”

Donovan’s frown deepened and she drew in a sharp breath, because of course she knew that it was not only about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. The way to them, as Moriarty had already shown, was through their friends. And there were more of them than Donovan had ever realised, and they included Greg and the woman who sang at his side and made him happy, and now her Taddy, even though he wasn’t hers any more.

“You are a good detective, Sergeant Donovan,” said Mycroft, coming at last to the crux, “And you are wasted in your current position. Your colleagues don’t trust you, after what happened with Lestrade and the truth came out about Sherlock. But you can't go back to the Yard while Lestrade is there. Frankly, you are going nowhere.”

Donovan arched an eyebrow at him, but didn’t reply, because, damn it, Mycroft was right.

And now, the moment he had been building.

“Work for me, Sergant Donovan. We can...” he considered and tilted a self-deprecating smile at her, “Make the world a better place. Finish the work Sherlock began. Make amends, if you will.”

Donovan’s face twisted as she snorted derisively. “We’ll never make it up to them. They’ll never forgive me. Even if they could, it’ll never be the same. It’ll never go back to what it was. Do you think your brother can forgive you? _Do you_?”

Mycroft swallowed delicately. “Perhaps not. But it's not about that, is it? We failed not only them, but ourselves. We misjudged. Miscalculated. And for people like us, that is... unforgivable. It is not only for their sake: it is for our own. We must show we can do better. We must protect them, even if they have no idea that this is what we are doing. _We_ will know. That's enough.”

“You want me,” said Sergeant Donovan, with a sharp, snide tone, “To work for you? In, what, a secret government organisation to root out the guts of a secret criminal empire? To give me a chance to redeem myself and save my friends, like this is some kind of cheap spy thriller? Is _that_ what you’re offering me?”

“Yes, Sergeant Donovan, that is what I am offering you.”

Her gaze raked imperiously over his suit, his umbrella, his impeccable Italian leather shoes. “So we’ll be like Steed and Mrs Peel, will we?”

"If you like,” said Mycroft amiably, but the ice behind it wasn’t lost on Donovan, “ It doesn't matter, surely? It needs to be done. Who is better placed, or better motivated, than we? You are bored where you are, and your colleagues are wary of you. Suspicious of your judgement. I'm not. You were not wrong, when you first met Sherlock, to question him. He's changed now, but before John Watson, he could have become... anything. I, on the other hand, appreciate both your history and skills, and am sympathetic to your lapses. I am responsible for worse, after all.”

Mycroft slid his fingers into the breast pocket of his suit and withdrew a card, plain white, embossed in plain black ink. "Think about it. If you want the job, call me. You have until tomorrow lunchtime to decide."

Donovan took the card, as he knew she would. She stared at it. She stared at him. She lifted her gaze to the stage, where John was laughing at something Sherlock had shouted down to Mrs Hudson during the last song, and Sherlock was attempting to look above it all, until he caught Taddy laughing at him too, whereupon he rolled his eyes and pushed into the next song. But there was a smile at the corner of his mouth. Greg was laughing, too, but brought his bass in on cue as Molly began to sing another song about killers, with that sweet smile and those gentle eyes of hers. The look Greg gave her, like he was so proud of her, made Donovan’s heart ache, that no-one had ever looked at her like that.

“What if I don't need to think about it?” she said suddenly, dragging her eyes away from the stage to regard Mycroft with steely resolve.

Mycroft allowed himself a smile. _Not joyfully, no, but gladly and emphatically? Oh yes_.

“Then I'll send a car for you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow's Sunday.”

"No rest for the wicked, Sergeant Donovan."

She nodded. "All right. In the morning, then. What do I call you?"

"Mr Holmes will be fine. Or Sir."

"In the morning then, Sir." She nodded again. Her face was still set in a scowl, her eyes still measured him ruthlessly.

Mycroft suspected he was going to like working with Sally Donovan.

He turned on his elegant heel, only to come up short on his planned exit as his assistant strode towards him through the crowd, looking ruffled.  _She is never ruffled. Never_.

“There’s a slight problem with the car, sir…” she began.

And that’s when Mycroft heard the lowing, a sound which should have been amusingly rustic, but it was less bucolic and more… aggravated.

Then he heard the shouts, and the lowing became a bellow, and the crowd parted to reveal…

…a cow.

Running.

Straight towards him.

Mycroft’s first reaction was irritation that he didn’t know the correct word to describe the gait of a rapidly moving cow. His second was to open his umbrella in an attempt to divert the cow's trajectory...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Collared's songs this chapter are:
> 
> Battlefield - Collared
> 
> Unity – Shinedown: http://youtu.be/_gVdi6sizeY
> 
> I Fought the Law (and the law won) (this version by The Clash: http://youtu.be/MBeT4ptY9sY)
> 
> Titanic Days -Kirsty McColl : http://youtu.be/0pXTl0sQbhQ


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stampede is averted. Taddy is brave. John provides comfort and, after a surprise appearance from an old enemy, he smiles like a knife blade. Finally, Sally realises she has become a convert.

Being a city-based cop, Sergeant Sally Donovan's experience with startled and swiftly-moving cows was exactly nil. However, as a city-based cop, her experience of thinking on her feet and sizing up the potential damage to standers-by when faced with very heavy and hurtling motorbikes/cars/steroid-pumped thugs was extensive.

Her first act as an employee of a minor government official was to dash at her boss and duck his brandished umbrella in order to scoop a hand around his waist and pull him out of the path of the oncoming bovine freight train. She pivoted Mr Holmes out of the way, then followed her movement through to pass in front of him, disarm him and roll the umbrella on its opened rim across the lawn and between the cow and the crowd of people towards which it was now thundering.

As she'd surmised, a cow's momentum was not dissimilar to that of Laszlo the Wall. Faced with the spooky umbrella, it tried to brake, couldn't, but in the attempt, lumbered over the top of the umbrella and at least slowed down. Score. New boss saved from harm; general populace saved from a rampaging cow.

Though from her new boss's stricken look at his trampled umbrella, she suspected her first pay cheque was probably going to be docked the cost of some new protective rain gear.

The cow snorted, raised its head and stared at her.

Sally Donovan snorted, raised _her_ head and stared back.

It all looked to be becoming a satisfactory kind of stalemate, until some moron who had come chasing in after the cow gave a holler of encouragement to a fellow moron, and a neon orange golf ball came flying out of the crowd and walloped the cow on its capacious flank.

With a startled low of outrage, the cow feinted left, encountered a mangled umbrella, then feinted right and ran towards the stage.

Donovan considered giving chase, then remembered how Laszlo the Wall had taken off through a crowded tube station under pursuit and nearly trampled a little kid and her mum on the way. Pursuit would only, as with the Wall, make the cow more of a danger. She wished she had a gun. Shooting the cow would be a terrible idea, obviously, but letting it trample kids was a worse one. But no gun meant that wasn't even an option.

Then she heard a voice that gave her hope. On stage, Lestrade had shucked the bass and grabbed a mic, and started issuing urgent instructions to an agitated but attentive audience. At Lestrade’s command, Taddy had leapt down to the grass and was managing crowd control on the right side of stage, ushering people aside to give the unhappy beast more room and fewer targets. Molly joined him a moment later, waving her hands at people on the left. Lestrade gave encouragement, focus, structure, to the whole enterprise. The crowd parted as directed by the authoritative man on the stage and his two assistants.

Sherlock Holmes, who had placed his violin carefully on the stage, jumped to the ground, John Watson at his heels. Holmes looked serious and determined, yet disturbingly thrilled. Dr Watson's expression managed to simultaneously convey: _Oh Christ, what on earth am I about to do?_ and _Oh hell, I'm doing it anyway, aren't I?_

The cow baulked and tried to change direction. Taddy ran to one side, arms outstretched, keeping between the cow and the people he was trying to protect. The cow lunged briefly at him and he stood tall, throwing his chest out, trying to make himself big, which Sally thought was possibly the best and bravest thing she’d ever seen him do.

The cow, panic rising, lumbered left, then right, frightened by the people (even the small man trying to be big) and the noise, then saw a gap and charged into it. Straight at the stage.

Straight at Sherlock and John

"Stop him!" Mycroft Holmes was at her side, hissing the command at her. Donovan cast a quick glance at him – the posh woman was at their boss’s side, so he was covered – before obeying the command and running cow-wards. If she'd thought about it, she would have imagined her expression was identical to John's right now.

As she ran, everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. The several tons of angry Sunday roast hurtling towards the tall, lanky detective. Doctor Watson swerving to one side, coming in at the cantering animal from an angle, with a determined expression, perhaps intending to launch himself at the cow's head and attempt to wrestle it, cowboy-like, to the ground. And Sherlock Holmes, standing tall in front of it, then bending low at the waist, arms outstretched and... blowing a raspberry.

Well, not a raspberry, obviously. That would have been just stupid. But he was bending, no doubt of it, his face at cow-face height, and blowing forcefully through his nose and lips, making a distinct sound, like a horse blowing through its horsey lips.

The cow... slowed down.

Doctor Watson, with slightly more confidence now, slowed a little too, timing his trajectory so that he was now just behind the cow's head. Sherlock flicked his left hand in a warding motion and Watson, instead of leaping, dropped back a little further, his attention shifting from Sherlock to the cow to Sherlock to the cow to Sherlock...

Who, still bent over, stretched in the cow’s direction and blew another loud but otherwise gentle and fairly ridiculous raspberry.

And the cow slowed down further still. Momentum remained something of an issue, but the canter had become a trot, then the trot became an uncertain pacing, and the creature changed direction to amble past Sherlock's left hand. He reached out his fingers as it passed, touching its withers, ribs, flank.

As soon as momentum allowed, the cow ambled to a stop. Dr Watson, who had been keeping pace the whole time, ambled to a stop of his own and cautiously walked towards the cow's head.

"Gently, John," Sherlock instructed in a low, calm voice, "Try to blow through your mouth and nose."

Obedient as ever to even the strangest of Sherlock's whims, John Watson took a breath and blew a gentle raspberry at the cow, who turned her head and blew an earthy breath back at him, as though to say "Well, I'm glad _that's_ over." John stretched out a hand and patted her neck. Sherlock walked in a wide arc to join John at her head and bent to snort at her. She snorted back agreeably.

Donovan stopped a safe distance back, but close enough to hear John Watson say: "We should have tried that with the pony."

"Not enough room in the priest hole," said Sherlock, "Or I would have tried, believe me."

"And where did you learn that trick?"

Sherlock shrugged, his mouth turning down into an unhappy line. "Had to spend a few weeks on a dairy farm in Kazakhstan while I was... Away."

Donovan saw something in the detective's eyes then, but had no idea how to label it. In someone else she might have called it sorrow, or horror, or loss. It certainly seemed a haunted look.

"Dairy farm, eh?" Dr Watson repeated the words but seemed to be asking something else, and the look in his eyes was hard to define as well.

"It was... a lead. One of Moriarty’s crew... it took too long and it was… bad."

Sally Donovan did not recall a time she had ever seen the Fr… Sherlock Holmes inarticulate. His voice had dropped, and he seemed distracted. He seemed unaware of the proximity of anything but John Watson and the cow.

"After then, I… It was. After. When you and Mrs Hudson. The lullaby."

Dr Watson, one hand still patting the cow's forehead, hoping apparently to keep it calm, extended the other and squeezed Sherlock's upper arm.  Rubbed his thumb gently back and forth over the fine cotton shirt, as though soothing the skin beneath it. Sally watched as John smoothed his hand up to briefly brush his fingers against the back of Sherlock’s neck, a gentle reassuring pressure before letting his hand rest on Sherlock’s shoulder.

Then, with a wry smile, John Watson said: "Faked your death, fooled almost everyone, went on the run for a year to dismantle a criminal mastermind’s international network, got shot, stabbed and beaten up to keep protecting us, and you still found time to become a cow whisperer. You're amazing. Utterly brilliant. A genius. Best thing since sliced bread. Better than a double rainbow. I've told you that, right?"

"Once or twice," said Sherlock, the tension leaving his body, his mouth lifting in an answering smile. He raised a hand and placed it briefly over his friend's as the sheen of sorrow-horror-loss-haunting melted away. "And it's not really cow whispering, John."

“It’ll do for me,” the doctor replied with a laugh.

 _It’ll do for me too_ , thought Donovan. That man, that weird, unpleasant, frightening man had just averted disaster – and almost certain trampling of some stray kid – by blowing a calculated and calming raspberry at an angry cow. Using a technique he’d learned while working incognito to protect her DI, his landlady and his adrenalin junkie best friend, at the same time as, it was abundantly clear, undergoing some nameless trauma.

 _Damn. Damn damn damn._ She had been so wrong about him. She hated being wrong.

Donovan glanced back towards her new boss, who was testing something in the handle of the damaged umbrella, making sure the hilt of it still slid smoothly in and out of the body of the thing. _Hilt. Oh. Great. My new boss has a sword concealed in his brolly. This just keeps getting better._

And then she realised she meant it. This _was_ better. Better than anything she’d seen or done or felt in a long time.

_My boss carries a swordstick. I just saved him from a stampeding cow. I am going to be fighting the cancerous offshoots of a criminal mastermind's organisation. This is going to be **amazing.** If I didn’t just get fired for breaking Mr Holmes's lethal umbrella. Ah. No. The look he’s giving me is not the look of being fired in record time. This really **is** getting better._

And then Sally Donovan thought: _Holy hell. I’ve just joined the ranks of the crazies that hang around the Holmes brothers._

And then she thought: _That’s not so bad. If Taddy can do it, I can do it._

She turned on her heel to report back to Mr Holmes for duty, in time to see a number of policemen – both uniformed and plainclothed – march out of the crowd with their hands on the collars of three reprobates. The three who had thrown golf balls at the band earlier in the proceedings, and at the cow only minutes ago.

Oh, and a fourth reprobate – an older man in the bright red jacket the proclaimed him a member of the nearby golf club. He was issuing angry commands as a young constable frogmarched him into the company of the hooligans, culminating in: “Don’t you know who I am?!”

At which point, Sergeant Sally Donovan nearly choked, because she knew _exactly_ who he was.

So, of course, did Doctor John Watson, who smiled at the golfer with the kind of smile that would have frightened a sensible man half to death.

Chief Superintendent Bowker had never been a sensible man, though. Which was why John Watson had punched him in the face in the first place, that fateful day that had ended so horribly at St Bart’s. The old bastard hadn’t exactly stood up for Donovan either, when it all hit the fan a few months later. Oh no. He had not made himself a friend anywhere in this vicinity.

Bowker caught sight of Watson, flinched, then snarled: “You!”

“Hey,” said John in airy greeting, still with that smile which would probably also have frightened sharks, “Long time, no see.”

“You should be in prison! You jumped up, deranged, half-witted, half-pint thug.”

“I’m well, thanks for asking,” continued John, smiling like a scimitar, “I enjoyed the anger management course I got to do, as a reward for busting up your nose. Healed well, by the way, I can see.”

Sally saw Sherlock standing at John’s side, watching with great and admiring interest.

“You’re a dangerous little turd!”

“As you can see,” John continued, “I learned to manage my anger extremely well. Didn’t I, Sherlock?”

“Extremely well,” Sherlock concurred, “He’s been much more reasonable of late when some of my experiments go awry.”

“And that time I found the ears in with the parsnips.”

“I was very impressed,” agreed Sherlock, “You didn’t even yell. Just threw them at me with the most remarkable sangfroid.”

“Mind you,” said John, “I manage my anger, you’ll note. _Manage_ it. I didn’t actually learn to get Not Angry. I might have a relapse. If provoked.”

The scimitar smile glinted as it was further unsheathed.

“Are you likely to provoke me?” he asked, mild as a nun on Sunday.

Bowker glared, obviously planning a provocation, and John’s eyes began to glint too, while his fingers curled towards fist-hood.

Donovan was torn between wanting to intervene and wanting to see John plug the belligerent prat one more time, and was startled at how much she was not horrified at having so totally gone over the fence to the Holmesian view of things.

“The Chief Inspector may have provoked enough anger for one day,” said Sherlock, leaning over John’s shoulder to peer at the senior policeman’s ears, “I expect he’ll soon have other things to occupy his time, since I imagine he’ll soon be on charges for endangering public safety.”

John arched a questioning eyebrow at his friend. “By being a useless, ugly twat in a loud jacket?”

“No, John. By inciting a cow to stampede in a public area during a public function with the aid of his nephew, his nephew’s friends and a couple of lurid golf balls.”

One of the boys in question twisted anxiously in the grip of the police officer who held him. “Uncle Howard, I never told no-one, I swear!”

“Shut up!” snarled Bowker, but it was much too late.

For the first time in her long association with Sherlock Holmes, Sally Donovan found she was very much looking forward to whatever came next out of the detective's mouth.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking at IMDB, the Chief Super didn't seem to have a surname, so I've arbitrarily assigned him one. The nearby golf club really does have a rule that its members must wear red jackets. However, I have nothing against the real golf club. Please do not blame them for my fiction or for Bowker being an asshat.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chief Superintendent Bowker gets deduced. He doesn't like it. John manages his anger. A little bit. Sherlock doesn't care, he just wants to sing the new song, because a new song by John is always more interesting than anything else. And Sally realises that she's not all right.

Chief Superintendent Bowker knew he was done for: there was panic in his eyes, and his breath was on the edge of laboured. Still, he was a stubborn bastard. He made a valiant, final attempt to bluff his way out of it.

“Get your goddamned hands off me, Constable, or by Christ you’ll spend the rest of your career in the records room. _Filing_.”

The constable looked momentarily like that was actually a welcome option. He had finally worked out who he held by the collar, and suspected a lifetime of filing might be getting off lightly. It would certainly be preferable to assignments that were meant to have been a literal walk in the park and turned out to be full of mad cows and madder senior police.

“Come now, Chief Superintendent,” came a silken voice, and Sally realised Mycroft Holmes had joined them, “The lad is only doing his job. You were speaking in threatening tones to one of the ladies asking for donations. Hardly behaviour worthy of a Chief Superintendent, would you say?”

“How do you…? And that’s a lie. I wasn’t…!”

“Oh give up on it,” said Sherlock, sounding both impatient and bored, “You gave instructions to your…” he peered at the boy’s ears now, “Nephew and his friends to disrupt the concert. When their initial attempt failed, you returned to the golf club – of which you are obviously a senior member – retrieved the club mascot,” he nodded to the cow, “And brought it back with instructions for your nephew to cause as much disruption as possible.”

“That cow has as much right to be here as you do!” snarled Bowker.

“He’s right you know,” said Greg Lestrade, coming up behind them, “Cows have grazing rights on Chingford Plains.” He looked around. “Of course, there aren’t quite so many cows around these days as when those rights were granted, but the fact remains.” Greg kept his expression quite neutral. “Besides, there’s no evidence the Chief brought the cow into the grounds, or that he was in any way involved in the distressing of the animal.”

Sherlock turned to cast a contemptuous glare at the DI, but there was something so relentlessly mild about Greg’s expression; something so furiously reasonable and patient about the lift to his eyebrows and the polite angle of enquiry of his head, and Sherlock desisted. Instead, he turned back to face Bowker, suddenly aware of the air of expectancy emanating from John, from Sally Donovan, from Greg Lestrade, from Bowker’s sulking nephew. Even, quite possibly, from the cow.

“Your jacket marks you as very obviously a member of the golf club,” said Sherlock, starting high up on the first page so that everyone, even Bowker, could follow, “The quality of the cloth marks you as a senior member, in fact, so your access to the club rooms, the grounds and certainly the pens at the rear of the club, where the club mascot is usually held, is certain.  You have hay on the hems of your trousers, and your shoes…” Here Sherlock inhaled deeply, with the coldest look of disdain, “Smell markedly of manure. You’ve been in the pen.”

“Your right hand is slightly oily, the oil marked with embedded dirt, of a type and consistency associated with the coats of farm animals, although in this case a remarkably well groomed and clean farm animal: the result of handling the hide of the cow.” Sherlock held his own hand up, demonstrating where a similar though fainter mark had appeared on his own palm after he had slowed and patted the cow, “And the hairs on your cuff and under your left fingernails match those on the animal’s hide – black and white, short, coarse, so not a dog or a cat. A cow. That cow.”

“It’s the club mascot,” declared Bowker furiously, “It’s perfectly natural that I have signs of our mascot on my person.”

“Then how did the cow get from the pens to the fete? There are three gates between her pen at the club and the Plains. I could see two of them and surmise the presence of the third from the car park when we arrived earlier. Did the cow unchain them herself? No, you’ve done more than spend time with her, Bowker; you’ve been leading her here. With…” Sherlock leaned suddenly towards the cow’s face, blowing a friendly raspberry as he did so, then inhaled sharply. “Apple.” Sherlock then gave Bowker’s front right pocket an enormous sniff. “Red delicious, if I’m not mistaken. And I’m not.”

“How can you…?” spluttered Bowker in combined indignation and displeased surprise.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, disdaining to reply, but John slid in with: “They’re his favourite.” He gave Sherlock a defensive and protesting look in response to the eyebrow being brandished in his direction. “Well, they are.”

With a small sigh, Sherlock turned back to Bowker. “Do you want me to continue? About your clear dislike for the noise from the fete? How it’s ruined your game today? How you engaged your nephew to create disruption and even possibly injury in order to bring an end to the fete so you could complete your game untroubled by the noise. And that expression isn’t fooling anyone, it’s obvious he’s your nephew, look at his ears, the way he walks, the webbing between thumb and index finger, the elbows, for goodness sake, but there’s neither enough fear or respect from him to indicate a closer relative. Nephew then, you’ve had to pay him, he’s starting to wonder if it was worth the price…”

“Too bloody right,” mumbled the teenager.

“Would you like me to go over the rest of it? All the indications that you have being playing golf, badly, all morning, that your blood pressure is getting dangerously high, how you negotiated the deal with your nephew: how I can tell all that from the state of your collar and your hair and the pencil marks on your teeth and shirtfront? And really, this is tiresome beyond words. We haven’t finished our set, John promised we’d close with the new song today, and I have the rest of Mrs Hudson's scones to eat. Are we done here?”

Bowker looked for a moment like his eyeballs might actually bug right out of their sockets, and Sherlock found that distracting and fascinating, even though he knew it was almost certainly not going to happen. Sally wondered, a bit more realistically, if Bowker was going to have a stroke.

“You… _freak!”_ hissed Bowker, and he threw a punch at Sherlock's face.

And the next moment…

Well, the next moment, Bowker was flat on his back, holding his bleeding nose and howling in rage and pain, and John Watson was standing over him, snarling “No, you mangy prick!” and Sherlock wasn’t making the slightest attempt to hold the doctor back at all. Instead, he was pressing his fingers to his grazed cheekbone.

“And you,” snapped John sideways at him, “Need to learn how to duck.”

“It’s nothing, John,” Sherlock said, “No power in it at all.”

That’s when Sally realised she was standing, teeth gritted, fists curled, while her boss wrapped a hand around her wrist to keep her still. And she realised that she had intended to punch… Bowker. Definitely Bowker.

The dark side definitely had her now.

“Arrest that maniac!” Bowker was shrieking.

John withdrew a step, his hands flung up in the air to show he was unarmed and saying: “Managing my anger! Managing it, see?!”

The constable looked uncomfortable until Lestrade leaned forward and said, conversationally, “You’ll find there are plenty of witnesses that John Watson was acting in self defence.”

“And,” said Sally Donovan, crisp and blunt and efficient, “There is sufficient evidence to arrest CS Bowker and his nephew on charges of endangering public safety. So I’d get on with that if I were you. And get someone to take that poor cow back to the golf club.”

“If you touch me…!” began Bowker in a ferocious bellow.

The cow, in response, lowed in an aggrieved tone, moved restlessly, flicked her tail high and deposited a satisfyingly large and pungent pat of manure on the Chief Superintendent’s shins and shoes. It seemed to take the fight right out of him. Bowker gave himself up meekly to the hands of the Constable and his colleagues, and was led away with the curses of his nephew ringing in his ears.

Beside her, Sally heard the quiet snick of a concealed blade being pushed back into its sheath. Her boss leaned ever so slightly in her direction and said: “When I said stop him, I was of course referring to Sherlock, not the cow. The cow is a _she._ ”

“Trying to stop the cow seemed easier, sir,” she admitted, _sotto voce_.

“Yes. I quite see that. Well done here, though.”

“Thank you, sir. Sorry about your umbrella, sir.”

“No permanent damage done, Sergeant. The canopy will need replacing. Not the first time. The blade has been replaced more than once itself. It is somewhat like a samurai sword, in that regard. Is it still the original weapon, I wonder, if blade, handle and sheath have been regularly remade?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir. I’m not a philosopher.”

Sally was suddenly aware of the silence that seemed to have gathered thickly and was now pointed in her direction. All those sets of eyes, of former friends, of former enemies, and all she could do was stare and blink. The weight of that collective, watchful silence was too much. It was filled with too much to say, no words with which to say it; filled with apology and shame and humility and misplaced pride and the promise that she’d make it right, make it right, make it right, even if they never forgave her, if they never even knew, she would try to make it right. She would.

But she couldn’t tell them. She didn’t know the words. Not the right ones. Not the best ones.

“What a horrible man,” said an almost chirpy voice, and Mrs Hudson appeared, arms folded, to watch Bowker being taken away. “He’ll never get that out of his trousers. And in my experience, shoes like that do not recover from cow dung either.”

Sherlock Holmes turned away from Sally Donovan, dropped a kiss on Mrs Hudson’s forehead and strode back towards the stage. “New song!” he shouted as he walked, “Come on!” Taddy and Molly were already getting back on stage and to their instruments.

Greg Lestrade smiled quizzically at Sally and followed. John Watson, absent-mindedly flexing the hand with the newly bruised knuckles, gave Sally and Mycroft a wary look. “So he _comes_ to talk to you,” he said, with a hint of asperity, “He always used to just _kidnap_ me.”

Sally frowned at him.

John sighed. “Never mind. Good luck, whatever you’re up to. You should hang around for the last song, though. You might appreciate it.” And then John Watson grinned like a crazy man, turned and jogged after his band back to the stage.

Within moments they were back at the instruments, back at the mics, and John was soothing the crowd with a few wry words about the floor show.

“One last song for you today, a new one. This is its first outing, so we hope you like it. We’d like to dedicate it to…” John grinned out at the crowd, at Sally and Mycroft and the Black Maria departing with a dung-smeared, smash-nosed, music-hating Chief Superintendent in it, “… pretty much everyone.”

And pretty much everyone stopped to listen while John plucked out the opening notes, then the bass came in, before two bars later the drums and violin and keyboard burst in and two bars after that, John and Sherlock began to sing together, eyes dancing with glee and delight that neither could repress.

 _All dressed up in a white straitjacket  
Shut your mouth; no, you can't have it  
  
Paper airplanes; open window  
Here today and gone tomorrow_  
  
And then the five of them, a kind of delighted insanity infusing them, Taddy too, launched into the chorus.

_I like to stare at the sun and think about what I've done  
I lie awake in my great escape  
I like crossing the line and slowly losing my mind  
Are you ok? cos I feel fine!  
Maybe it's me, I'm just crazy  
Maybe I like that I'm not all right_

Although still sharing the lead, the next part seemed to be more Sherlock than John, as he shifted the violin to get closer to the mic.

_All messed up and slightly twisted  
Am I sick or am I gifted?_

He raised a questioning eyebrow at the band, and collectively they shrugged ‘Don’t know, don’t care’ back at him and then they were all devil-may-care in the chorus again and flying into the bridge, John and Sherlock again, singing out at the pretty much everyone out there who didn’t get it, didn’t get them, didn’t understand.

_Oh, I don't care if you apologise  
I can't lie  
Oh, I can't lie_

Then the whole song seemed to step up, in energy, in defiance, in cracked joy.

_Maybe I like that I'm not all right  
Maybe I like that I'm not all right_

Before it ended on a great crash of emphatic notes, and a roar of laughter from every throat on that stage.

 _Maybe,_ thought Sally Donovan as the crowd cheered and the band waved back, _Maybe I get it now._

Sally Donovan turned to find Mycroft Holmes regarding her with a knowing expression. “Ready to start work, then, Sergeant Donovan?”

“Yes sir,” she said, with a sharp nod for emphasis.

Mr Holmes’s cool assistant replied approvingly with an almost imperceptible nod of her own.

The final piece slid into place in Sally’s head _. Gifted **and** twisted. That’s me now. That’s us. Me and Mr Holmes. And that’s… okay. I’m okay with that. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final song is 'I'm not alright' by Shinedown: http://youtu.be/Mr2PFsKDSaw


	10. The Dancing Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some loose ends are tied up. John meets someone he likes. He and Sherlock dance. And then John makes a few things crystal clear to his best friend.

The youngest player in the trombone section was having trouble with the high notes again as the Police Youth Brass Band got to the end of its ill-advised rendition of Britney Spears’ Poison. Sherlock’s hand tightened reflexively in pain/horror on the cardboard cup in his hand, crushing it and spilling hot tea all over his knuckles. Words inappropriate for mixed company ensued, and he leapt about, shaking his hand and cursing. When John tried to grab his hand to examine the damage, Sherlock hissed, snatched his hand away and jammed it into his armpit. Then he hissed again and let John take a look.

“Ice,” said John to the general vicinity, which contained the band, his landlady and a number of general patrons of the fete. Mrs Hudson answered the call even before it was uttered – she was used to Sherlock’s mishaps from long before John’s appearance on the scene – and she appeared with some ice a moment later, courtesy of the ladies running the tea tent in which they had taken refuge. She handed it over along with a floral white cotton handkerchief. John made a little ice bag and held it over the red scald mark. Sherlock hissed again, then he quirked a grin at his doctor.

“Tell me doc,” he said, “Will I ever play the violin again?”

“Of course,” said John, putting on his Serious Doctor Face, “But I’m afraid your days as a high wire acrobat are over.”

Then they both giggled like that meant something in particular.

The rest of the band and Mrs Hudson exchanged eyerolls, because they were used to this kind of thing by now and had decided to find it amusing rather than infuriating.  It made life easier and reduced the risk of Greg actually just punching one or both of them.

Taddy, shaking his head a little, blew on his own too-hot cup of tea and regarded the world outside the refreshment tent. “It was a stupid thing to do, though,” he said, apparently apropos of nothing.

“Sherlock didn’t do it on purpose…” began Molly.

“He means Bowker,” said Sherlock.

“Oh,” Molly blinked, “Yes, that was strange. Senior policeman. Respected member of the golf club…”

“A man under stress,” Sherlock added, “Marriage on the rocks, estranged from his eldest… daughter, I think, from his first marriage; he has recently been diagnosed with heart trouble, and hypertension of course; more recently he has been professionally undermined due to a series of bad decisions, stepping on political toes because of his impatience and ill temper, all compounded the evidence that I was wrongfully arrested. My return has in turn compounded his stress levels. Finding we were playing today, when he was trying to play a round of golf was, I believe, the cherry on the cake.”

“Plus, dear,” said Mrs Hudson cheerfully, “He is a golfer, and avid golfers are not very stable while playing at the best of times. As you remember, my husband was a golfer.”

“That, Mrs Hudson, was the least of his sins,” said Sherlock, irritated.

“That,” said Mrs Hudson darkly, “Was the _first_ of them.”

“Oh well,” said Molly brightly, “Maybe he’ll get some time off to rest, now.”

“Yes, I’m sure it’s very restful in prison,” said Sherlock.

“Not so much, in my experience,” countered John, giving Sherlock the evil eye, because they both knew exactly when and why and whose fault it was that John had cause to have had experience in the restfulness or otherwise of being in prison, even if it was only overnight.

“Oh, don’t start that again,” said Sherlock, “You enjoyed it.”

John’s eyebrow arched so high he nearly sprained his forehead, but he let it pass because he had actually won the fight (and thoroughly enjoyed both fighting it and winning it, yes) and he had in fact found useful information for the case, so it was a double win.

Taddy turned his back on the external festivities and fixed Sherlock with what he probably imagined was a penetrating look. “And what was your brother talking to Sally about?”

Sherlock, who had stolen John’s tea, paused mid-sip. He met Tad’s eye with a challenge in his expression. Tad frowned and bit his lip, considering his options. After a minute, he scowled and glared at his own feet.

“Come on, Anderson,” Sherlock growled, “You know perfectly well what he…”

“What kind of a job?” Tad snapped back, “What possible kind of job could he offer Sally? She’s a cop. He’s in the government. She doesn’t…” He snapped his jaw closed as his eyes widened, and then he said: “She’s going to be a spy?”

“Of course not,” Sherlock said, disappointed, “Think, Anderson. Not all government agents are spooks. Not the kind you’re thinking of, anyway.”

“But she… why would she even consider it? And what…?”

Before Sherlock could point out what he considered the obvious, Greg interjected with: “Oh my god, Mycroft’s not roping her in to go after what’s left of Moriarty’s network, is he? Christ, she’ll get herself killed.”

“Why would she do that?” Tad demanded, voice rising in distress, “She has a job, she…”

“She’s trying to make up for it,” said Molly suddenly.

“For what?” Sherlock seemed puzzled by the concept.

 “All of it,” said John quietly.

And there was a long pause. All of it. For the accusation and loathing and suspicion and the long fall and the long, long absence and for the so many things that had seemed so broken (and for her part in breaking them) but were whole again, and stronger than they’d ever been.

Except for the one who had set a spark to the fuse; she had not ended stronger than she had begun. She, most of them suspected, even those who had never liked her, and those who had not forgiven her, she was still broken.

“Did you see her?” Molly suddenly broke into the silence, “She was about to give the Chief a black eye before John got in his left hook.”

John looked surprised. Sherlock simply smiled speculatively.

“She’ll be fine,” he said, “Mycroft wouldn’t bother with her if she wasn’t any use to him.”

“I’m not sure Sally being of use to Mycroft necessarily means she’ll be fine, Sherlock” said Greg in a strained voice.

“You don’t have faith in her abilities, Greg?”

Greg blinked, frowned, then a slow smile crept across his face. “God help the leftovers of Moriarty’s crew,” he said at last.

“That’s the spirit,” Sherlock said.

 _Sally and Mycroft_ , John was thinking tiredly as he fetched a tea refill and strode to the tent flap to listen to the happy sounds from outside _, God, I don’t know whether to be more worried for them or the criminal underworld._

Then John thought about Mycroft, and he thought about Sally Donovan, and he thought about how much he hoped the dregs of Moriarty’s empire was going to suffer in the future, and he decided he was pretty satisfied with the arrangement.

It was at that moment he saw her. Even at the time it seemed significant: she was the personification of verve, with a bounce in her determined step, vivacity in the way she held her head and grinned at her taller companion. She was petite and pert and laughing, her brown eyes bright, the sun catching red highlights in her dark cap of hair.

But he almost walked away when she and the tall companion reached him at the tent and she addressed him by name.

“Hello. John Watson, isn’t it?”

John nodded, a little curtly, his initial interest waning under the expectation of disappointment. _Oh god. Please don’t let her be a fan of the blog, and with all those stupid questions. “What’s Sherlock Holmes really like? Are you really just friends? What did you do when he came back from the dead? Does he really not know the earth orbits the sun?”_

Not for the first time, John regretted that teasing gibe, included mainly to stir his friend. The fact that Sherlock did not care in the least where the sun and Earth revolved in relation to each other was never meant to turn into such a ridiculous running gag for strangers to use as a way to bring that great mind down a peg or two. He wished people would stop bringing it up, as though it made them clever by comparison; because they really, really weren’t.

“Mary Morstan,” said the woman, and stuck her hand out for him to shake, “This is my friend and colleague, Nirupa D’Souza.” She indicated her tall, elegant companion, who was giving him an appraising stare.

“Hello,” he managed, a little warily. Ms D’Souza flashed a tight smile at him, then flicked her gaze through the tent flap, looking for someone else.

“Please excuse Rupe. She’s a keen reader of Sherlock Holmes’s website and has been wanting to talk to him about getting hold of that treatise on cigarette ash for a while. He hasn’t replied to the request she sent.”

“He’s… been away a while,” John said cautiously.

“Yes,” D’Souza’s lips pursed in a contemplative moue, “We’ve read. Honestly, Sherlock Holmes a fraud? What sensible person could have believed that for more than thirty seconds? The man’s a genius.”

John knew better than to take that pronouncement as a sign that these two women were more than the usual fans. Everybody was keen, these days, to pretend they’d always been on his side.

“His observational capabilities of urban societies alone were enough to ascertain his extraordinary gift for detail,” D’Souza continued, sounding cross, “Let alone his clearly broad grasp of scientific principles and inductive reasoning. Seriously. How could people be so stupid? I’ve attempted to apply his methods in my own work in rural and remote societies, with significant success. Not as much as I’d like, of course. I’m no slouch in my field, but his mind is extraordinary. Oh, there he is.” And Nirupa D’Souza disappeared into the tent.

“Don’t mind Rupe,” Ms Morstan was saying, “That’s her way of being enthusiastic. She appreciates a fellow student of human nature.”

John nearly followed D’Souza into the tent, the woman’s intense sincerity making him think uncomfortably of Moriarty’s more bug-fuck crazy moments.  He watched, though, as D’Souza said something, Sherlock looked up and cast his eye over the newcomer in his trademarked fashion, as though wielding a scalpel and began to deliver a slightly acidic summary of D’Souza’s person: _recently returned from Peru; work with indigenous tribes; anthropologist, then; smoker – against doctor’s orders as you are recovering from a bout of malaria; irritated by the forced repatriation to London; single, childless; lesbian, but you haven’t been in a relationship for some time; resentful of your mother’s influence and a younger sibling – brother most likely – who causes the family grief. Impatient to be back in the field._

And John saw D’Souza’s delighted grin as she leaned forward and said: “You forgot ‘crushing on the cute keyboard player’.”

“I didn’t forget,” Sherlock asserted, “But John insists that it is sometimes polite to withhold information that may make my friends uncomfortable.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” interrupted Molly chirpily, “I mean, it’s quite nice, really. Sort of sweet, though I’m not… but thank you, I’m… um…” 

Morstan’s warm laugh distracted John again. “Rupe always crushes on the keyboard players or the harpists, whoever is blonder. She’s so predictable.”

“At least she knows what she likes,” John offered.

“”Anthropology, cute blonde musos, intellectual stimulation and chocolate coated raisins, not necessarily in that order,” said Morstan, laughing again.

John realised, quite suddenly, that he very much liked that laugh.

“How about you?” he prompted, “What do you like?”

She smiled at him. “Building things – I’m a civil engineer – intellectual stimulation, having adventures, reading blogs about adventures and people who stick by their friends no matter what.”

He blinked at her.

“Even in Peru, we followed what had happened. Internet access may be sporadic at times, but…” she paused. “AM I coming across as some awful creeper? All I really meant to say was that I enjoyed your blog, Doctor Watson. Your accounts of the cases you shared with Mr Holmes were wonderful, when Rupe and I were so far from home, and we were distressed when we thought he had died, and the lies the papers told about him. We were very relieved, on his behalf as well as yours, when the truth came out, and when it was learned he hadn’t died after all, we were both… and I know this is ridiculous. We don’t even know you. But we were beyond relieved. And it’s been a joy to see you both blogging again.”

“Ah. Thank you.”

“And I am coming across like a creeper, aren’t I?”

“No, no, not at all!”

She grinned. “It’s all right. I am a bit, I know. But… well, I suppose your friend could probably deduce this in a minute or so, but my own father was something of a maverick. The stories he told me, growing up, of the things he and his best friend got up to were wonderful. When I discovered your blog, Doctor Watson, your stories reminded me of him and his friend. They were adventurous spirits too, and more than a little swashbuckling.” The warmth of her smile was tinged with some kind of regret, “I miss them, and your blog reminded me of them. So. Anyway. Rupe and I heard that you would be performing here today, and I wanted to come along and say hello. And thank you.”

“You are very welcome,” said John, and he smiled back at her.

And they smiled a bit stupidly at each other for a moment.

“I could murder a cup of tea,” she said after a moment, “Is it any good?”

John gently waggled this cooling cup of tea. “This stuff? In this case, we’d definitely call it justifiable homicide. But the home-made shortbread makes up for it.”

“I like shortbread,” she responded, still smiling, “I like the band, too. Nice work with the lead vocals. And the golf balls. And the cow.”

“The cow wrangling was all Sherlock,” John admitted.

“Ah, but the lead vocals was all you.” Her smile got, if anything, warmer, “And did you know you look hot when you play guitar, Doctor Watson?”

John, who never blushed, never, well, not since he was a kid, because between being teen punk rocker and then med school and then the army and then Sherlock Holmes, there was very little that could make him blush, but just that minute, with this woman’s approving smile and the sudden memory of Sally once calling him Doctor Sex, well, John H Watson’s ears went decidedly pink. Then he laughed, a low, self-deprecating chuckle. “Call me John.” He stuck out his hand for her to shake.

“Call me Mary,” she said, shaking it, and holding the hand a fraction longer than necessary. Then a fraction longer than that.

He was about to offer to buy this lovely Mary Morstan a cup of horrible tea when she squeezed his hand a little tighter.

“So, John Watson, you blog, you fight crime, you play guitar, you sing, you have excellent reflexes in the face of golf balls and a nifty left hook. Any other hidden skills?”

“One or two,” he admitted, voice low, “How about you?”

“You’d be surprised.” Mary’s voice had also gone low.

“Good. I like surprises.”

And then John and Mary stepped out into the sunshine and walked around the fair to talk and to get to know each other better.

John learned that Mary was a civil engineer who spent most of the year travelling the world working on community projects in developing nations with her friend Nirupa, an anthropologist who worked with indigenous communities to liaise with aid agencies funding the projects. He also learned that Mary was funny, smart, cheeky, confident, independent, thoughtful and could be reduced to a wicked, uninhibited laugh if properly provoked.

They didn’t get back to the tent for an hour. The brass band had thankfully called it a day by then, and the stage had now been taken over by a DJ. The space in front of the stage was filled with dancing couples. John and Mary returned to find a sort of party taking place in the grass outside.

The DJ was playing a chirpy recent tune in an unexpected three/four time, and Molly and Greg were practically glued together as they danced around on the grass almost on the spot. To one side, doing a much better waltz with only the recommended body parts touching – hand on shoulder, hand on waist – Sherlock was leading Mrs Hudson in gentle steps. Nearby, Taddy Anderson was attempting the same dance with less success as Mary’s friend Nirupa kept trying to take the lead.

“Mary, where have you…?” Nirupa began, then: “Good god, what’s that?”

Mary grinned and hefted the giant stuffed bear she was holding into the air. “John won it for me at the shooting gallery.”

John tried to smile modestly, but failed utterly. With his chest a little puffed out, his eyes shining, in point of fact, John Hamish Watson looked immoderately pleased with himself.

“You’ve been gone an hour,” Sherlock observed drily. He looked like he was about to make further observations, about John, about Mary, about the last hour, but John gave him a quelling look and then lifted up the clear plastic water-filled bag he held in his left hand. Within the bag, a goldfish swam in lazy circles. John shoved it in Sherlock’s direction.

“Here,” John said, “Don’t say I never get you anything.”

Sherlock took the bag with an unexpectedly smug expression. “Oh, excellent, John!”

“That’s not for experimenting on,” John told him sternly.

Sherlock managed to look scandalised.

“You’re not fooling anyone, Sherlock,” John warned.

Sherlock shrugged and examined his fish critically.

“We can put a tank up next to the skull,” suggested John.

Sherlock ‘hmmed’ in agreement and kept an eye on the fish, which undulated its fins and drifted off to the other side of the bag. Sherlock turned the bag so he could look it in the eye again. The fish, not to be browbeaten by a giant grey eye, ogled back.

“What are you going to call it?” asked Molly.

“It’s a fish,” said Sherlock with a hint of scorn, “Why would a fish need a name?”

Greg Lestrade leaned over to peer at the nameless fish. “He looks a little bit like your brother. That way he’s got of staring at you like you’re an affront to the scenery.”

Sherlock scrutinised the fish more closely still. “A little. Around the mouth, perhaps.” He frowned. “I am not calling my fish Mycroft.”

“Hardly seems polite,” agreed Mrs Hudson.

“Not fair on the fish,” Sherlock clarified. Then he straightened and held the bagged fish up to the light. “If you insist on a name, it’s Archimedes.”

“Archimedes?” Greg raised an eyebrow.

“Due to the displacement of water,” Sherlock gave as much explanation as he intended.

The DJ on the stage changed tracks to some other chirpy pop tune, which made Molly squeak with delight and pull Greg willingly into another dance.

Mary grinned at John. “So, John, is dancing another of the things you’re good at?”

“He’s adequate,” interjected Sherlock.

John went dangerously still. “Adequate,” he repeated, flatly.

“Well, you do have a natural balance and rhythm, it’s true, but not much memory for the moves. Look how long it took you to learn those three dances for the case at the gay dance thing a few weeks ago.”

“I learned three dances in four days,” John growled.

“Well, admittedly, you already knew how to waltz and foxtrot. I don’t imagine you remember much of the freeform number now, though,” said Sherlock mildly.

“I can strip down and reassemble an assault rifle in the dark while under enemy fire; I can render emergency medical care in a sandstorm while mortars are taking the roof off; and you think I can't remember a dance routine from less than a month ago that nearly got us stabbed?"

" _And_ nearly got us a trophy."

"You're a mad bugger."

"You know I'm right."

“I know you’re a…”

“If you still know it,” said Mary, “I’d love to see it.”

John turned to regard Mary with a slightly horrified expression, and it was the dare in her grin as much as Sherlock’s smug inference that he’d fail that spurred the next words out of John’s mouth.

“Fine. Yes. All right. Let’s do it.”

Sherlock’s startled expression nearly gave them an out, except he covered the surprise with a wolfish grin and agreed: “Yes. Let’s. Care to make a small wager on you forgetting the steps?”

“I believe I do,” John shot back, squaring his shoulders and jutting his chin out bullishly. “If I remember it all, you’re going to spend tomorrow decontaminating our biohazard of a kitchen.”

“And if you forget, which you will, you’re showing me those three new songs you still won’t show me.”

They glared at one another for a moment longer, then shook on it.

And the next thing, Sherlock had handed Archimedes to Mrs Hudson for safekeeping, Tad Anderson was sent to the DJ to request the right song, and Sherlock and John were taking position in the grassed dance space in front of the stage, more like pugilists off to a punch-up than dance partners. They were seen into position to cheers and accolades from the band, Mary Morstan and even the slightly bemused Nirupa D’Souza. The crowd seemed to sense an impending show, and given this crew had given excellent value for money so far today, they cleared the impromptu dance floor.

John and Sherlock faced each other with twin expressions of grim determination. John jerked his chin up again, defiant and throwing out the challenge. Sherlock smirked slightly, arrogant and sure.

The regulation span apart, Sherlock placed his right hand on John’s waist; John placed his left on Sherlock’s shoulder; their opposing hands clasped. Their frame was crisp and precise, and they were poised for the first moves on the first notes: guitar, overlaid by a whistled melody. Maroon 5, and soon John and Sherlock, preparing to move like Jagger.

Then the syncopated drums beats started, and Sherlock stepped forward and back, and John stepped back and forward, the little bounces on the balls of their feet between steps, and Sherlock led them into the first sweeping circle across the grass.

_Just shoot for the stars, if it feels right, and aim for my heart…_

But it was only a standard salsa for those first few bars, because Sherlock would never settle for ordinary, not even for choreography that was just meant to get them believably into a dance competition to track down a stalker with a weird penchant for doubloons.

As the lyric flowed into ‘ _I put on a show’_ they two of them swung wide, then Sherlock tugged John’s hand and, with a dip of shoulder and hip, John shifted gracefully, a step in front of his partner. Sherlock tucked close behind him in the next beat, his right hip nudged up close to John’s left, and they shimmied a few steps before John seemed to make a break for it. Sherlock caught him by the elbow, spinning him so that they faced each other again,

And John, one hand on Sherlock’s chest, the other held in Sherlock’s grip, swung under Sherlock’s arm, spinning on the turn, rising behind, their hips and feet synchronised, and John took Sherlock’s left hand in his left, right arm around Sherlock’s waist, and pulled him back to another turn before Sherlock ducked under his arm, pulled away, both his and John’s arms extended even as their hands were entwined, and they pulled each other back, face to face, in the traditional salsa stance, frame locked.

_You say I’m a kid, my ego is big, I don’t give a shit…_

But their hips and feet were still rocking and shifting, their shoulders tucking down into movement, their arms curved. John’s face was tilted up towards Sherlock’s; Sherlock grinning down at John, and they appeared to have forgotten this was a dance-off. A _bet_.

_And it goes like this…_

Mrs Hudson, who was something of an expert on these things, tried to explain it later; how Sherlock was all precision and elegance, using his height and reach, the way Fred Astaire had always done. John had a lower centre of gravity, a more solid and muscular presence. He was not elegant like Sherlock. Instead, he had that economy of grace and leashed power reminiscent of Gene Kelly, and instead of appearing diminished or overwhelmed by his dance partner, his compact masculinity provided a grounding counterpoint to Sherlock’s attenuated reach. Nobody watching could mistake either as a female substitute in the dance. Sherlock may have been leading, but this was unmistakably two formidable men darting and dipping around the space.

_Maybe it’s hard, when you feel like you’re broken and scarred…_

Then something happened, a minute pause, and John seemed to be pushing back, taking over the lead, and Sherlock was guided backward, at speed, spin and turn, and pulling away until they span apart and then John was in front, Sherlock pressed against his back, moving identically for a few steps, and then a space opened between them and they became fulcrums for one another, almost like cogs in clockwork, using arms, legs, shoulders, waists, moving close and then away, each pulling the other back into orbit, until John had almost escaped, his arm and Sherlock’s arm at full extension; then some line between them, like a bungee cord, snapped…

_You want to steer, but I’m shifting gear, I’ll take it from here, oh yeah yeah…_

And John’s small, powerful figure surged, leaped, his hip landing just above Sherlock’s and for a moment, a breath, they held, poised in flight, before Sherlock twisted and John twisted and his body slid over Sherlock’s back, away to the other side, landing on his toes, a turn and step, and Sherlock’s fingers curled over John’s, and it was enough to stop him spinning away again, instead snapping him back to that salsa hold and if anything their steps were faster, more complex, with more turns and twists, sometimes moving in synch, sometimes in counterpoint, but always moving, always shifting.

At the bridge, Sherlock had crowded up close to John, and John’s left hand was splayed on Sherlock’s chest, his right curved around his back.

_You want to know how to make me smile, take control, own me just for the night…_

Then he was pushing Sherlock away to the left, but keeping his grip on the right, and Sherlock and he were back to back, then Sherlock had tucked himself under John’s arm, pulled away, then arms up and he was spinning and falling…

_And if I share my secret, you’re going to have to keep it, nobody can see this…_

And John caught the spinning, falling length of him, by the waist and shoulders, holding Sherlock short of the ground, over his bended knee, Sherlock’s back arched, his legs stretched away to points, and with a flick and tug, he was upright again, his body still arched, held from falling only by John’s grip on his wrist and waist, and then another flick and tug and damn if John didn’t lift Sherlock bodily up (on his good shoulder, though none watching could discern that he even had a bad shoulder), and _damn_ if the audience didn’t gasp at the impressive strength of it, and the pose was held for a second before Sherlock curled and dropped, and John leaned so that Sherlock’s hip and torso slid down the length of his body and they were off again, face to face, standard salsa but so, so fast, the steps full of power and strength, the choreography no longer of two men fighting for supremacy but of two men finding balance in their opposing natures, fitting together until the final dying note of the whistle saw them, still facing each other, right elbows locked, right knees braced against each other bodies draped back as though spent, and those points of contact the only things keeping them upright.

The music died away. They waited another beat. Then they pushed themselves upright, stared at each other, chests heaving with the exertion.

And then, naturally, they both fell about laughing.

The sound of enthusiastic applause distracted them, and Sherlock drew himself up to his full height before dropping into a dramatic bow, practically sweeping the grass with his fringe. John, with a more soldierly experience of this sort of thing, brought his heels in tight, folded an arm across his middle and delivered a sharp, precise bow, almost like a Prussian commander to his emperor.

He stood up to grin at the particularly wild applause Mary was sending his way.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen,” John said with a laugh, “Is how we would have won the Soho Dancing Divas LGBTI Ballroom Dance Competition last month, except a stalker tried to stab us at the last minute so we wouldn’t defeat his favourites.”

“You wuz robbed!” shouted Greg in a bad faux Bronx accent.

“Yes, we were,” agreed Sherlock readily.

“I’m expecting a pristine kitchen tomorrow,” said John, when he got his breath back.

“You’ll be able to eat your dinner off it,” Sherlock assured him.

When Mary gave John a second round of applause for his success in the dance-off and kissed his cheek, Sherlock gave her a speculative look before schooling his face to blankness and retrieving Archimedes from his landlady.

“Nirupa and I have to be going,” said Mary, holding John’s hand for a moment, and he squeezed her fingers gently in return, “We’re working on the scope for a new water project in Ghana, presenting on Monday. But I’ll be free later in the week. If you were. Free, I mean. For coffee.”

“Definitely free for coffee,” agreed John.

“I don’t have a phone yet,” Mary said, her brow creasing in consternation, “We actually only got back from Peru last week.”

“I’m easy to find,” John told her, smiling.

“I know. 221B Baker Street.”

“You’ve got it. There’s a café downstairs. Leave a message for me there, if you can’t reach me.”

“You bet.” Mary made a point of pressing a kiss to his cheek, and then she was off, grabbing Nirupa by the arm and striding away towards the carpark. She made a point of turning to wave back at John. John raised an arm, waved, and then watched her leave.

It took a while after that to finish up, loading the band gear (and the band) into Tad’s huge van, driving back into London, unloading most of the gear and Greg and Molly’s place and saying farewells before John and Sherlock made it home to Baker Street with their own instruments.

Mrs Hudson had made it home ahead of them and left a note for them, along with a casserole dish on the kitchen table. “Until Sherlock decontaminates the kitchen” it said, with a smiley face. Sherlock rolled his eyes at the note.

John regarded the slip of paper, his lower lip outthrust in a pensive expression.

“You knew perfectly well you were going to lose that bet,” he said to Sherlock after a considered moment.

Sherlock, who had disappeared into his room to change out of his shirt and jacket and into his robe, didn’t deign to comment.

John leaned against the table, arms folded, and directed his comments to the open door, through which he could see his flatmate moving around the room.

“You know I’d remember, and you knew you’d lose the bet, so what was it all about, Sherlock?”

Nothing.

John chewed on his lip for a moment and then offered up his own deductions.

“I think you wanted Mary to see us dancing. I think you were hoping she’d be put off, seeing me dance with a man.”

The silence was a very weighty one, and finally Sherlock said: “Not hoping, no. Merely… wondering.”

A moment later Sherlock reappeared, barefoot, his robe over his trousers and bare chest. He didn’t look at John as he strode past to fling himself on the sofa.

John made a few more calculated guesses, scowling at Sherlock all the while.

“She wasn’t, though, was she?” John said.

“Wasn’t what?” Sherlock’s had curled with his back to the room.

“Put off. Bothered. Whatever it was you thought she’d be.”

“I didn’t think she’d be anything, John. I hardly noticed her.”

John snorted his disbelief.

“I suppose she’s less inane than the other women you’ve dated.”

“We haven’t dated yet, Sherlock. Mary and I only just met.”

John couldn’t see Sherlock’s expression, but he was mildly surprised that it wasn’t producing scorch marks on the sofa. And then everything fell into place, and instead of being irritated at Sherlock’s latest attempt to be the CockBlocker Supreme, he just sighed.

Sherlock had been home only a matter of months. John had not dated anyone in that time. He hadn’t dated anyone for even longer. Not for all of that long year of Sherlock’s absence. Not for months before that. John had not been interested, and for the last few months he’d had other priorities. Mary Morstan was the first woman he’d met who interested him in the slightest in all that time. He knew himself well enough to know just why that was, too.

“You daft git,” said John affectionately to the back that was presented to him, “You don’t need to be… whatever it is you are. Possessive. Defensive.”

“Don’t be inane, John.”

“I won’t be inane if you’ll stop being jealous.”

“I am not jealous.”

“Of course not.”

“Date who you like.”

“I will.”

“She’s not as bad as some,” Sherlock conceded reluctantly, “She seems intelligent. Not too clingy. She seems… adequate.”

Which was the nicest thing Sherlock had ever said about any woman John had ever met. That might even do for starters, John thought.

“Sherlock, you know right, that even if I meet some… adequate woman, you and me, we’ll keep on doing what we do. You know that?”

There was a very long pause and eventually a soft voice grumbled: “It seems unlikely.”

“That’s because you’re not paying attention, genius.”

Sherlock finally rolled over in order to raise a scathing eyebrow. He met John’s folded arms and an expression caught between amusement and irritation.

“Pay attention, Sherlock. To the songs. To us. To me.” John took a breath, released it slowly. Gone were the days when he hesitated over speaking his heart to Sherlock. His heart was written in every song he composed. Mere sentences weren’t a barrier any more.

“Listen carefully. I don’t intend to repeat myself. You are the first person who ever really saw me, Sherlock. Every aspect of who I am. You never asked me to edit myself, or to be anything other than all of who I am. And, well, frankly I’m no longer prepared to settle for less than that. If ever I meet a woman who’ll be… special, if she doesn’t see all of me, I don’t want a relationship. I don’t want to settle for less. I don’t want to hide part of myself for anyone. Why do you think I’m still single at 40? Too many attempts to pretend there was less to me than everything I am. It never worked. Not for longer than a couple of years.”

Sherlock’s expression still contained the ghost of a question. John continued, answering it.

“Anyone who sees all of me sees that you’re part of that, Sherlock. Anyone who accepts all of me, accepts you, accepts us. That’s how it is. If she can’t deal with that, I can’t do it. I’m not going to compartmentalise myself for anyone any more. I can’t be less than whole.”

Sherlock blinked.

“And the thing is, Sherlock, I think Mary might be someone who sees me whole.”

Sherlock swivelled to sit up on the sofa, his hands steepled below his chin in a familiar pose. After a moment, he raised his chin to meet John’s gaze.

“I see.”

“You do? Really?”

“Really.” Sherlock managed a crooked smile. “You do realise, don’t you John, that this _seeing_ goes both ways. You see me, too. And it doesn’t make you…” He sought for the right word. “Run,” was the word he settled on, discarding _disgusted_ / _afraid/despise me/loathe me._ “It never has.”

“No,” John agreed, “It never has.”

Sherlock took a breath. Another. Relaxed. “She does seem largely tolerable,” he conceded at last, “And her anthropologist friend was remarkably intelligent, within the limits of her field.”

“You still have to clean the kitchen,” John said after a moment, “You lost the bet.”

“Fine.”

“But I’ll show you the songs, if you like. Even though you lost.”

Sherlock’s expression became alive with interest. “When? Now?”

“Fine, now. Though if you find them sentimental beyond bearing you’re not to say a word. There’s a reason I haven’t played them before now, you know.”

“I gathered. Play them anyway.”

John fetched his guitar and perched on a dining chair to play.

“Remember,” he said, “One snide remark and I’ll stop.”

Sherlock made a dismissive noise and hand gesture and sat forward to listen.

And John Watson played and sang, and didn’t care that his heart showed. And Sherlock Holmes listened, really listened, and didn’t care that in smiling the way he did, his heart showed too.

 _There is no sunset we can walk into_  
Cause the sun keeps on burning out of sight  
Every night, it’s the morning somewhere  
Every morning is someone else’s night  
The story won’t ever end  
  
Even when our hearts stop beat-beat-beat-beating  
the rhythm carries on  
the story in the song

_Half of our nine lives have surely gone up in flames  
And I wouldn’t change a thing, and there’s no-one I blame_

_I don't want to live forever_  
Just another life or two  
As long as every life I’m leading  
Is the adventure of me and you

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANd here is Maroon 5 with Moves LIke Jagger.  
> http://youtu.be/iEPTlhBmwRg

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Guitar Man's Collered Album Covers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/463878) by [Wanderer_Brown_Sheep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderer_Brown_Sheep/pseuds/Wanderer_Brown_Sheep)




End file.
